



f^ 















^'^<^ 



0- j 



:ji^*' ^■ 



^^ ; 






,;<i!«! 







.^' 



H-^^ 



..^^' 


















•.^■^44'. 



. d^" 



^^ 



.9 *'""' -^ 




V' .•j.;>^'*. ^ 



y •:, 








<^ *' .V 







♦* <L^ <^. * 











C,vP 

<^^ 'O , A 


























• ^v 













THE 



ASHLAND 



TEXT BOOK, 



A COMPENDIUM 



/: 



MR^'"'^ LAY'S SPEECHES, 



VARIOUS PUBI.IC MEASURES, 
Etc. Etc. 



BOSTON— REDDING & CO. 

NEW YORK— SAXTON & MILES.' 

PHILADELPHIA— G. B. ZIEBER & CO. 

1844. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, by 
N. Hickman, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the 
State of Maryland. 



KINO anh baihd, pniNTEns, Philadelphia. 



WHIG PlimCIPLES. 



AshlancU l^th September, 1842. 
Dear Sir: 

I received your favor communicating the patri- 
otic purposes and views of the young men of Philadel- 
phia ; and I take pleasure, in compliance with your 
request, in stating some of the principal objects which, 
I suppose, engage the common desire and the common 
exertions of the Whig party, to bring about, in the 
Government of the United States. These are : 

A sound National currency, regulated by the will and 
authority of the Nation. 

An adequate Revenue, with fair protection to Ameri- 
can industry. 

Just restraints on the Executive power, embracing a 
further restriction on tlie exercise of the Veto. 

A faithful administration of the Public domain, with 
an equitable distribution of the proceeds of sales of it 
among all the States. 

An honest and economical administration of the 
General Government, leaving public ofRcers perfect 
freedom of thought and of the right of suffrage ; but 
with suitable restraints against improper interference in 
elections. 



4 WHIG PRINCIPLES. 

An ameiKiinent of the ConslitiUion, limiting the in- 
cumbent of the Presidential oflice to a single term. 

These objects attained, I think that we should cease 
to be afllicted with bad administrations of the Govern- 
ment. 

I am, respectfully, 

Yonr friend and obedient servant, 

H. CLAY. 
Mr. Jacob Strattax. 



THE ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 



HENRY CLAY. 

In revolutionary days, when the affairs of the whole 
country were enshrouded in the deepest gloom, all the 
true lovers of their country looked up to Washington, 
as the saviour of his fellow-countrymen. It needed not 
the petty machinery of cabals, to convince the people 
that the man best qualified for emergency, was Wash- 
ington. Public opinion, free, untrammelled public opin- 
ion, by its resistless impulses, bore the great and the 
good chieftain into his appropriate place. In this, as in 
all other cases, the correctness of public opinion was 
plainly manifested. 

After the trumpet had ceased to sound — when peace 
was smiling all around — this same public opinion call- 
ed on Washington to leave the quiet of domestic life, 
for the turmoil and responsibilities of the Executive 
Chair. The ravages of a despotic power were visible 
through the whole extent of the land. As a natural 
consequence of the slate of aiTairs through which the 
country h^.d just passed, agriculture had been neglected 
— the commerce of the country, little as it had been, was 
almost prostrated — the mechanical arts had, of necessi- 
ty, been overlooked — farms, workshops, and all else, 
had been emptied to make up armies — dejection brooded 
over every countenance, and despair was not far ofT, and 
it needed just such a man as Washington to bring out 
from the heterogeneous mass, the elements of future na- 
tional prosperity and glory. 

AVe not only see, but in the most poignant way feel, 
the present condition of our country. It is sufl^'ering 
under a prostration, occasioned by a series of the most 



b ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

ferocious attacks on her commerce, agriculture, mecliauic 
arts, manufactures and currency'. 'I'lie merchants 
are, in many instances, beggared, fir commerce has been 
crippled. The hardy sons of the soil, the honest, 
blown handed farmers have no inducements to cultivate 
much beyond what is in demand for their own immedi- 
ate use. In the workshops of the artisan, undisturbed 
cobwebs are found festooning the instruments of former 
industry. "The sound of the shuttle" is scarcely heard 
in the land, and the currency of the day is beyond reach 
and below contempt. The professions are poorly paid, 
or not at all. Each man looks upon his neighbor, and 
seems to be asking, when shall this soul desponding 
state of things end ? 

It is in this condition of our affairs, so similar to the 
times which preceded and followed the American Revo- 
lution, tliat every eye is turned towards the great, the 
good, the patriotic Clay. In every patriotic heart, he 
has received a nomination for the office which, once 
being filled by a Washington, was the means of rescuing 
the country from the demon-like attacks of political an- 
archists. It must be peculiarly gratifying to Henry Clay 
that, in this trying hour of his country, in this extreme 
emergency, when all hearts seem to fail and when trem- 
bling has come upon her stoutest men, he is, almost 
simultaneously, by the people of this wide spread land, 
regarded as the only man who can rescue it from the 
awful position in which it has been placed by the reck- 
less doings of heartless demagogues. 

Henry Clay now stands before the American people 
proudly erect. His very name is enshrined in the peo- 
ple's " heart of hearts." They know, judging from the 
past, that he will not swerve in the hour of difficulty 
from the maintenance of those great principles of Ameri- 
can liberty, which he has on all occasions, and at all 
hazards, so eloquently advocated, 'i'he people believe 
that Henry (!lay is the only man into whose hands can 
be entrusted tiie responsil)le task of bringing back to tlic 
country the prosperity of former days. They further 
believe, that Henry Clay is not to be moved by the 
blaiulishmenls of false friends, or the menaces of hid- 



ASHLAND J EXT BOOK. 7 

den foes. His principles are known, and by himself 
openly avowed, fle does not court secresy — his whole 
history is before the country, and the property of that 
country. Like Washington, he has retired from the 
strife of the political world, to the shades of rural retire- 
ment, and the people are calling on him, as they did 
upon Washington, to come forth and take the helm, and 
save them from destruction. 



ON PROTECTION TO HOME INDUSTRY, 

House of Representatives, April 26, 1820. 

In considering the subject, the first important inquiry 
that we should make is, whether it be desirable that such 
a portion of the capital anri labor of the country should 
be employed, in the business of manufacturing, as 
would furnish a supply of our necessary wants ? Since 
the first colonization of America, the principal direction 
of the labor and capital of the inliabitants has been to 
produce raw materials for the consumption or fabrica- 
tion of foreign nations. We have always had, in great 
abundance, the means of subsistence, but we have deriv- 
ed chiefly from other countries our clothes, and the in- 
struments of defence. Except during those interruptions 
of commerce arising from a state of war, or from mea- 
sures adopted for vindicating our commercial rights, \ye 
have experienced no very great inconvenience hereto- 
fore from this mode of supply. The limited amount of 
our surplus produce, resulting from the smaliness of our 
numbers, and the long and arduous convulsions of 
Europe, secured us good markets for that surplus in her 
ports or those of her colonies. But those convulsions 
have now ceased, and our population has reached nearly 
ten millions. A new epoch has arisen ; and it becomes 
us deliberately to contemplate our own actual condition, 
and the relations which are likely to exist between us 
and the other parts of the world. The actual slate of 
our population, and the ratio of its progressive increase 



O A!->£LAN1> XtXX BUCK. 

when compared with the ratio of the increase of the pop- 
ulation of the countries wiiich have iiitherto eonsumec} 
our raw produce, seem, to me, alone to demonstrate the 
necessity of diverting some portion of our industry from 
its accustomed channel. We double our population in 
about the term of twenty-live years. If there be no 
change in the mode of exerting our industry, we shall 
double, during the same term, the amount of our export- 
able produce. Europe, including such of her colonies 
as we have free access to, taken altogether, does not du- 
plicate her population in a shorter term, probably, than 
one hundred years. The ratio of the increase of her 
capacity of consumption, therefore, is, to that of our 
capacity of production, as one is to four. And it is 
manifest, from the simple exhibition of the powers of 
the consuming countries, compared with those of the 
supplying country, that the former are inadequate to the 
latter. It is certainly true, that a portion of the mass of 
our raw produce, which we transmit to her, reverts to 
us in a fabricated form, and that this return augments 
with our increasing population. This is, however, a 
very inconsiderable addition to her actual ability to 
afford a market for the produce of our industry. 

The wants of man may be classed under three heads 
— food, raiment and defence. They are felt alike in the 
slate of barbarism and of civilization. He must be de- 
fended against the ferocious beasts of prey in the one 
condition, and against the ambition, violence, and injus- 
tice, incident to the other. If he seeks to obtain a sup- 
ply of those wants without giving an equivalent, he is a 
beggar or a robber; if by promising an equivalent 
which he cannot give, he is fraudulent; and if by a 
commerce, in which there is perfect freedom on his 
side, whilst he meets with nothing but restrictions on 
the other, he submits to an unjust and degrading inequal- 
ity. What is true of individuals is equally so of nations. 
The country then, wiiich relics upon foreign nations for 
either of those great essentials, is not, in fact, indopen- 
dent. Nor is it any consolation for our dcpendance 
upon other nations, that they are also dopendnnt upon us, 
even were it true. Every nation should anxiously en- 



ASHLAND rii.Vr BOOK. "J 

deavor to establish its absolute independence, and conse- 
quently be able to feed, and clothe, and defend itself. 
If it rely upon a foreign supply, that may be cut ofl' by 
the caprice of the nation yielding it, by war with it, or 
even by war with other nations : it cannot be indepen- 
dent. But it is not true that any other nations depend 
upon us in a degree anything like equal to that of our 
dependance upon them for the great necessaries to which 
I have referred. Every other nation seeks to supply 
itself with them from its own resources ; and, so strong 
is the desire which they feel to accomplish this purpose, 
that they exclude the cheaper foreign article for the dear- 
er home production. Witness the English policy in re- 
gard to corn. So selfish, in this respect, is the conduct 
of other powers, that, in some instances, they even pro- 
hibit the produce of the industry of their oivn colonies, 
when it comes into competition with the produce of the 
parent country. All other countries but our own ex- 
clude, by high duties or absolute prohibitions, whatever 
they can respectively produce within themselves. The 
truth is, and it is in vain to disguise it, that we are a sort 
of independent colonies of England — politically free, 
commercially slaves. Gentlemen tell us of the advan- 
tages of a free exchange of the produce of the world. 
But they tell us of what has never existed, does not ex- 
ist, and perhaps never will exist. They invoke us to 
give perfect freedom on our side, whilst in the ports of 
every other nation, we are met with a code of odious 
restrictions, shutting out entirely a great part of our 
produce, and letting in only so much as they cannot pos- 
sibly do without. I will hereafter examine their favor- 
ite maxim, of leaving things to themselves, more partic- 
ularly. At present I will only say that I too am a friend 
to free trade, but it must be a free trade of perfect reci- 
procity. If the governing consideration were cheapness; 
if national independence were to weigh nothing ; if 
honor nothing; why not subsidize foreign powers to 
defend us ? why not hire Swiss or Hessian mercenaries 
to protect us ? why not get our arms of all kinds, as we 
do in part, the blankets and clothing of our soldiers, 



10 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

from abroad ? We should probably consult economy 
by these dangerous expedients. 

But it is urged, that you tax other interests of the 
state to sustain nianui'aclurers. The business of manu- 
facturing, if encouraged, will be open to all. Ii is not 
for the sake of the particular individuals who may happon 
to be engaged in it, that we propose to foster it; but it 
is for the general interest. We think that it is necessary 
to the comfort and well-being of society, that fabrication, 
as well as the business of production and distribution, 
should be supported and taken care of. Now, if it be 
even true, that the price of the home fabric will be some- 
what higher, in the first instance, tlian the rival foreign 
articles, tliat consideration ought not to prevent our ex- 
tending reasonable protection to the home fabric. Present 
temporary inconvenience may be well submitted to for 
the sake of future permanent benefit. If the experience 
of all other countries be not utterly fallacious ; if the 
promises of the manufacturing system be not absolutely 
illusory, by the competition which will be elicited in 
consequence of your parental care, prices will be ulti- 
mately brought down to a level with tliat of the foreign 
commodity. Now, in a scheme of policy which is de- 
vised for a nation, we should not limit our views to its 
operation during a single year, or for even a sliort term 
of years. We should look at its operation for a con- 
siderable time, and in war as well as in peace. Can 
there be a doubt, thus contemplating it, that we shall be 
compensated by the certainty and steadiness of the sup- 
ply in all seasons, and the ultimate reduction of tlie price 
for any temporary sacrifices we make ? 'J'ake the ex- 
ample of salt, which the ingenious gentleman from Vir- 
ginia (Mr. Archer) has adduced. He says, during the 
war, the price of that article rose to ten dollars per 
bushel, and he asks if you would lay a duty, permanent 
in its duration, of three dollars per bushel, to secure a 
supply in war. I answer, no, I would not lay so high 
a duty. Tliat which is now proposed, for the encour- 
agement of the domestic production, is only five cents 
per bushel. In forty years the duty would amount only 



ASHLAND TliXT BOOK, 1 1 

to two dollars. If ihc recurrence of war yliall be only 
after intervals of forty years' peace, (and \vc may expect 
it ]irobal)ly oftener,) and if, when it does come, the same 
price should ajiain be given, there will be a clear saving 
of eight dollars, by promoting tlie domestic fabrication. 
All society is an affair of mutual concession. If we ex- 
pect to derive the benefits which are incident to it, we 
must sustain our reasonable share of burdens. The 
great interests which it is intended to guard and cherish, 
must be supported by their reciprocal action and reac- 
tion. The harmony of its parts is disturbed; the disci- 
pline which is necessary to its order is incomplete, when 
one of the three great and essential branches of its in- 
dustry is abandoned and unprotected. If you want to 
find an example of order, of freedom from debt, of econ- 
omy, of expenditure falling below, rather than exceeding 
income, you will go to one well-regulated family of a 
farmer. You will go to the house of such a man as 
Isaac Shelby- You will not find him haunting taverns, 
engaged in broils, prosecuting angry lawsuits. You will 
behold every member of his family clad with the pro- 
duce of their own hands, and usefully employed ; the 
spinning-wheel and the loom in motion by daybreak. 
With what pleasure will his wife carry you into her 
neat dairy, lead you into her store-house, and point you 
to the table-cloths, the sheets, the counterpanes which 
lie on this shelf for one daughter, or on that for another, 
all prepared in advance by her provident care for the 
day of their respective marriages. If you want to see 
an opposite example, go to the house of a man who 
manufactures nothing at home, whose family resorts to 
the store for every thing they consume. You will find 
him perhaps in the tavern, or at the shop at the cross- 
roads. He is engaged, with the rum grog on the table, 
taking depositions to make out some case of usury or 
fraud. Or perhaps he is furnishing to his lawyer the 
materials to prepare a long i)ill of injunction in some in- 
tricate case. The sheriff is hovering about his farm to 
serve some new writ. On court-days — he never misses 
attending them — you will find liim eagerly collecting his 
witnesses to defend himself against the merchant's and 



1^ ASJILAND TKXT J30UK. 

doctor's claims. Go to his house, and, nfler the short 
and giddy period that his wife and daiigliters have flirted 
about tlie country in their calico and muslin frocks, what 
a scene of discomfort and distress is presented to you 
there! "Wliat the individual family of Isaac Shelby is, 
I wish to see the nation in the aggregate become. But 
I fear we shall shortly have to contemplate its resem- 
blance in the opposite picture. If statesmen would 
carefully observe the conduct of private individuals in 
the management of their own afl^airs, they would have 
much surer guides in promoting the interests of the state, 
than the visionary speculations of theoretical writers. 

The manufacturing system is not only injurious to 
agriculture, but, say its opponents, it is injurious also to 
foreign commerce. We ought not to conceal from our- 
selves our present actual position in relation to other 
powers. During the protracted war which has so long 
convulsed all Europe, and which will probably be suc- 
ceeded by a long peace, we transacted the commercial 
business of other nations, and largely shared with Eng- 
land the carrying trade of the world. " Now, every 
other nation is anxiously endeavoring to transact its own 
business, to rebuild its marine, and to foster its naviga- 
tion. 'I'he consequence of the former state of things 
was, that our mercantile marine, and our commercial 
employment were enormously disproportionate to the 
exchangeable domestic produce of our country. And 
the result of the latter will be, that, as exchanges between 
this country and other nations will hereafter consist 
principally, on our part, of our domestic produce, that 
marine and that employment will be brought down to 
what is necessary to cirect those exchanges. I regret 
exceedingly this reduction. I wish the mercantile class 
could enjoy the same extensive commerce that they 
formerly did. But, if they cannot, it would be a folly 
to repine at what is irrecoverably lost, and we should 
seek rather to adapt ourselves to the new circumstances 
in which we find ourselves. If, as I thiidv, we have 
reached the maximum of our foreign demand for our 
three great staples, cotton, tobacco, and flour, no man 
will contend that we should go on to produce more and 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 13 

more, to be sent to the glutted foreign market, and con- 
sumed by devouring expenses, merely to give employ- 
ment to our tonnage and to our foreign commerce. It 
would be extremely unwise to accommodate our industry 
to produce, not what is wanted abroad, but cargoes for 
our unemployed ships. I would give our foreign trade 
every legitimate encouragement, and extend it whenever 
it can be extended profitably. Hitherto it has been 
stimulated too highly, by the condition of the world, and 
our own policy acting on that condition. And we are 
reluctant to believe that we must submit to its necessary 
abridgment. The habits of trade; the temptinginstances 
of enormous fortunes which have been made by the suc- 
cessful prosecution of it, are such, that we turn with 
regret from its pursuit; we still cherish a lingering hope ; 
we persuade ourselves that something will occur, how 
and what it may be, we know not, to revive its former 
activity ; and we would push into every untried channel, 
grope through the Dardanelles into the Black Sea, to 
restore its former profits. I repeat it, let us proclaim to 
the people of the United States the incontestable truth, 
that our foreign trade must be circumscribed by the altered 
state of the world ; and, leaving it in the possession of 
all the gains which it can now possibly make, let us 
present motives to the capital and labor of our country 
to employ themselves in fabrication at home. There is 
no danger that, by a withdrawal of that portion which 
is unprofitably employed on other objects, and an appli- 
cation of it to fabrication, our agriculture would be loo 
much cramped. The produce of it will always come 
up to the foreign demand. Such are the superior allure- 
ments belonging to the cultivation of the soil to all other 
branches of industry, that it will always be preferred 
when it can profitably be followed. The foreign demand 
will, in any conceivable state of things, limit the amount 
of the exportable produce of agriculture. The amount 
of our exportations will form the measure of our impor- 
tations, and, whatever these may be, they will consti- 
tute the basis of the revenue derivable from customs. 

The entire independence of my country on all for- 
eign states, as it respects a supply of our essential wants, 



14 ASIIt-AND TEXT BOOK. 

has ever been with me a favorite object. The war of 
our revolution effected our political emancipation. The 
last war contributed greatly towards accomplishing our 
commercial freedom. But our complete independence 
will only be consummated after the policy of tliis bill 
shall be recognised and adopted. We have, indeed, 
great diflicnlties to contend with ; old habits, colonial 
usages, the obduracy of the colonial spirit, the enormous 
profits of a foreign trade, prosecuted under favorable 
circumstances, which no longer continue. I will not 
despair ; the cause, I verily believe, is the cause of the 
country. It may be postponed ; it may be frustrated for 
the moment, but it must finally prevail . Let ns endea- 
vor to acquire for the present Congress, the merit of 
having laid this solid foundation of the national pros- 
perity. 



ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 

House of Representatives, March 30 and 31, 1821. 

The object of the bill, under consideration, is to cre- 
ate the home market, and to lay the foundations of a 
genuine American policy. It is opposed, and it is in- 
cumbent upon the partizans of the foreign policy (terms 
which I shall use without any invidious intent) to demon- 
strate that the foreign market is an adequate vent for the 
surplus produce of our labor. But is it so ? 1. For- 
eign nations cannot, if they would, take our surplus pro- 
duce. If the source of supply, no matter of what, in- 
crease in a greater ratio than the demand for that sup- 
ply) a glut of the market is inevitable, even if we sup- 
pose both to remain perfecily unobstructed. The dupli- 
cation of our population takes place in terms of about 
twenty-five years. The term will be more and more 
extended as our numbers multiply. But it will be suffi- 
cient approximation to assume this ratio for the present. 
We increase, therefore, in population, at the rate of 
about four per centum per annum. Supposing the in- 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 15 

crease of our production to be in the same ratio, we 
should, every succeeding year, have of surplus produce, 
four per centum more than that of the preceding year, 
without taking into the account tlie difference of seasons 
which neutralize each other. If, therefore, we are to 
rely upon the foreign market exclusively, foreign con- 
sumption ought to be shown to be increasing in the same 
ratio of four per centum per annum, if it be an adequate 
vent for our surplus produce. Bui, as I have supposed 
the measure of our increasing production to be furnish- 
ed by that of our increasing population, so the measure 
of their power of consumption, must be determined by 
that of the increase of their population. Now, the total 
foreign population, who consume our surplus produce, 
upon an average, do not double their aggregate number 
in a shorter term than that of about one hundred years. 
Our powers of production increase then in a ratio four 
times greater than their powers of consumption. And 
hence their utter inability to receive from us our surplus 
produce. 

But, secondly. If they could, they will not. The 
policy of all Europe is adverse to the reception of our 
agricultural produce, so far as it comes into collision with 
its own ; and under that limitation we are absolutely 
forbid to enter their ports, except under circumstances 
which deprive them of all value as a steady market. 
The policy of all Europe rejects those great staples of 
our country, which consist of objects of human subsist- 
ence. The policy of all Europe refuses to receive from 
us any thing but those raw materials of smaller value, 
essential to their manufactures, to which they can give 
a higher value, with the exception of tobacco and rice, 
which they cannot produce. Even Great Britain, to 
which we are its best customer, and from which we re- 
ceive nearly one half in value of our whole imports, 
will not take from us articles of subsistence produced in 
our country cheaper than can be produced in Great Brit- 
ain. In adopting this exclusive policy, the states of 
Europe do not inquire what is best for us, but what suils 
them respectively ; they do not take jurisdiction of the 
question of our interests, but limit the object of their 



16 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

legislation to that of the conservation of their own pecu- 
liar interests, leaving us free to prosecute ours as we 
please. They do not guide themselves by that roman- 
tic philanthropy which we see displayed here, and which 
invokes us to continue to purchase the produce of for- 
eign industry, without regard to the state or prosperity 
of our own, that foreigners may be pleased to purchase 
the few remaining articles of ours, which their restrict- 
ed policy has not yet absolutely excluded from their con- 
sumption. What sort of a figure would a member of 
the British Parliament have made — what sort of a recep- 
tion would his opposition have obtained, if he had 
remonstrated against the passage of the corn law, by 
which British consumption is limited to the bread-stuffs 
of British production, to the entire exclusion of Ameri- 
can, and stated that America could not and would not 
buy British manufactures, if Britain did not buy Ameri- 
can flour ? 

Both the inability and the policy of foreign powers, 
then, forbid us to rely upon the foreign market as being 
an adequate vent for the surplus produce of American 
labor. Now, let us see if this general reasoning is not 
fortified and confirmed by the actual experience of this 
country. If the foreign market may be safely relied 
upon, as furnishing an adequate demand for our surplus 
produce, tlien the official documents will show a pro- 
gressive increase, from year to year, in the exports of 
our native produce, in a proportion equal to that which 
I have suggested. If, on the contrary, we shall find 
from them that, for a long term of past years, some of 
our most valuable staples have retrograded, some re- 
mained stationary, and others advanced but little, if any, 
in amount, with the exception of cotton, the deductions 
of reason and the lessons of experience will alike com- 
mand us to withdraw our confidence in the competency 
of the foreign market. The total amount of all our ex- 
ports of domestic produce for the year beginning in 
1795, and ending on the thirtieth September, 179G, was 
forty millions seven hundred and sixty-four thousand 
and ninety-seven. Estimating the increase according to 
the ratio of the increase of our population, that is, at four 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 17 

per centum per annum, the amount of the exports of the 
same produce, in the year ending on the thirlieth Sep- 
tember last, ought to have been eighty-live millions four 
hundred and twenty thousand eight hundred and sixty- 
one. It was in fact only forty-seven millions one hun- 
dred and fifty-five thousand four hundred and eight. 
Taking the average of five years, from 1803 to 1807, 
inclusive, the amount of native produce exported was 
forty-three millions, two hundred and two thousand 
seven hundred and fifty-one for each of those years. Es- 
timating what it ought to have been, during the last year, 
applying the principle suggested to that amount, there 
should have been exported seventy-seven millions seven 
hundred and sixty-six thousand seven hundred and fifty- 
one, instead of forty-seven millions one hundred and 
fifty-five thousand four hundred and eight. If these 
comparative amounts of the aggregate actual reports, 
and what they ought to have been, be discouraging, we 
shall find, on descending into particulars, still less cause 
of satisfaction. The export of tobacco in 1791, was 
one hundred and twelve thousand four hundred and 
twenty-eight hogsheads. That was the year of the 
largest exportation of that article ; but it is the only in- 
stance in which I have selected the maximum of export- 
ation. The amount of what we ought to have export- 
ed last year, estimated according to the scale of increase 
which I have used, is two hundred and sixty-six thou- 
sand three hundred and thirty-two hogsheads. The ac- 
tual export was ninety-nine tliousand and nine hogsheads. 
We exported in 1803, the quantity of one million three 
hundred and eleven thousand eight hundred and fifty- 
three barrels of flour: and ought to have exported last 
year two millinns three hundred and sixty-one thousand 
three liundred and thirty-three barrels. We, in fact, 
exported only seven hundred and fifty-six thousand seven 
hundred and two barrels. Of that quantity we sent 
to South America one hundred and fifty thousand bar- 
rels, according to a statement furnished me by the dili- 
gence of a friend near me, (Mr. Poinsett) to whose val- 
uable mass of accurate information, in regard to that 
interesting quarter of t!ie world, I have had occasion fre- 
1* 



18 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

quenlly to apply. But that demand is temporary, grow- 
ing out of the existing state of war. Whenever peace 
is restored to it,and I now hope thai the day is not distant 
when its independence will be generally acknowledged, 
there cannot be a doubt that it will supply its own con- 
sumption. In all parts of it the soil, either from climate 
or elevation, is well adapted to the culiure of wheat; 
and nowhere can better wheat be produced than in some 
portions of Mexico and Chili. Still the market of 
South America is one which, on other accounts, deserves 
the greatest consideration. And I congratulate you, the 
committee, and the country, on the recent adoption of a 
more auspicious policy towards it. 

Our agricultural is our greatest interest. It ought 
ever to be predominant. All others should bend to it. 
And, in considering what is for its advantage, we should 
contemplate it in all its varieties, of planting, farming, 
and grazing. Can we do nothing to invigorate it; 
nothing to correct the errors of the past, and to brighten 
the still more unpromising prospects which lie before 
us ? We have seen, I think, the causes of the dis- 
tresses of the country. We have seen, that an exclusive 
dependence upon the foreign market must lead to still 
severer distress, to impoverishment, to ruin. We must 
then change somewhat our course. We must give a 
new direction to some portion of our industry. We 
must speedily adopt a genuine American policy, still 
cherishing the foreign market : let us create also a home 
market, to give further scope to the consumption of the 
produce of American industry. Let us counteract the 
policy of Foreigners, and withdraw the support wliich 
we now give to iheir industry, and stimulate that of our 
own country. It should be a prominent object with 
wise legislators, to multiply the vocations that extend 
the business of society, as far as it can be done, by the 
protection of our interests at home, against the injurious 
elTects of foreign legislation. Suppose we were a nation 
of fishermen, or of skippers to the exclusion of every 
other occupation, and tlie b gislature had the power to 
introduce the pursuits of agriculture and manufactures, 
would not our happiness be promoted by an exertion of 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 19 

its authority ? All the existing employments of society, 
the learned professions, commerce, agriculture, are now 
overflowing. We stand in each other's way. Hence 
the want of employment. Hence the eager pursuit after 
public stations, which I have before glanced at. 

The creation of a home market is not only necessary 
to procure for our agriculture a just reward of its labors, 
but it is indispensable to obtain a supply of our necessary 
wants. If we cannot sell, we cannot buy. That por- 
tion of our population, (and we have seen that it is not 
less than four-fifths,) which makes comparatively no- 
thing that foreigners will buy, have nothing to make 
purchases with from foreigners. It is in vain that we 
are told of the amount of our exports supplied by the 
planting interest. They may enable the planting in- 
terest to supply all its wants ; but they bring no ability 
to the interests not planting ; unless, which cannot be 
pretended, the planting interest is an adequate vent for 
the surplus produce of the labor of all other interests. 
It is in vain to tantalize us with the great cheapness of 
foreign fabrics. There must be an ability to purchase, 
if an article be obtained, whatever may be the price, 
high or low, at which it is sold. And a cheap article 
is as much beyond the grasp of him who has no means 
to buy, as a high one. Even if it were true that the 
American manufacturer would supply consumption at 
dearer rales, it is better to have his fabrics than the 
unattainable foreign fabrics : because it is better to be 
ill supplied than not supplied at all. A coarse coat, 
which will communicate warmth and cover nakedness, 
is better than no coat. The superiority of the home 
market results, 1st, from its steadiness and comparative 
certainty at all times; 2d, from the creation of recipro- 
cal interests ; 3d, from its greater security ; and, lastly, 
from an ultimate and not distant augmentation of con- 
sumption, (and consequently of comfort,) from increased 
quantity and reduced prices. But this home market, 
highly desirable as it is, can only be created and cherish- 
ed by the protection of our own legislation against the 
inevitable prostration of our industry, which must ensue 
from the action of foreign policy and legislation. The 



20 ASHLAND i'EXT BOOK. 

effect and the value of this domestic care of our own in- 
terests will be obvious from a few facts and considera- 
tions. Let us suppose that half a million of persons 
are now employed abroad in fabricating, for our con- 
sumption, those articles, of which, by the operation of 
this bill, a supply is intended to be provided within 
ourselves. That half a million of persons are, in effect, 
subsisted by us; but their actual means of subsistence 
are drawn iVom foreign agriculture. If we could trans- 
port them to this country, and incorporate them in the 
mass of our own population, there would instantly arise 
a demnnd for an amount of provisions equal to that 
which would be requisite for their subsistence through- 
out the whole year. That demand in the article of flour 
alone, would not be less than the quantity of about nine 
hundred thousand barrels, besides a proportionate quan- 
tity of beef, and pork, and other articles of subsistence. 
But nine hundred thousand barrels of flour exceeds the 
entire quantity exported last year, by nearly one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand barrels. What activity would 
not this give, what cheerfulness would it not communi- 
cate, to our now dispirited farming interest ! IJut if, 
instead of these five hundred thousand artisans emi- 
grating from abroad,* we give by this bill employn^.ent 
to an equal number of our own citizejis, now engaged 
in unprofitable agriculture, or idle from the want of 
business, the beneficial effect upon the productions of 
our farming labor would be nearly doubled. The 
quantity would be diminished by a subtraction of the 
produce from the labor of all those who should be di- 
verted from its pursuits to manufacturing industry, and 
the value of the residue would bo enhanced, both by 
that diminution, and the creation of the home market to 
the extent supposed. 

The great desideratum in political economy, is the 
same as in private pursuits ; that is, what is the best 
application of the aggregate industry of a nation, that 
can be made honestly to produce tlie largest sum of 
national wealth ? Labor is the source of all wealth ; 
but it is not natural labor only. 

And what i.s this tariff? It seems to have been 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 2i 

regarded as a sort of monster, huge and dci'ormcd — a 
wild beast, endowed with tremendous powers of de- 
struction, about to be let loose among our people — if 
not to devour them, at least to consume their substance. 
But let us calm our passions, and deliberately survey 
this alarming, this terrific being. The sole object of 
the tariff is to tax the produce of foreign industry, with 
the view of promoting American industry. The tax is 
exclusively levelled at Foreign industry. That is the 
avowed aiid the direct purpose of the tariff. If it sub- 
jects any part of American industry to burdens, that is 
an effect not intended, but is altogether incidental, and 
perfecdy voluntary. 

But it is said that, wherever there is a concurrence 
of favorable circumstances, manufactures will arise of 
themselves, without protection ; and that we should not 
disturb the natural progress of industry, but leave things 
to themselves. If all nations would modify their policy 
on this axiom, perhaps it would be better for the common 
good of the whole. Even then, hi consequence of 
natural advantages and a greater advance in civilization 
and in the arts, some nations would enjoy a state of 
much higher prosperity than others. But there is no 
universal legislation. The globe is divided into different 
communities, each seeking to appropriate to itself all 
tlie advantages it can, without reference to the prosperity 
of others. Wliether this is right or not, it has always 
been, and ever will be the case. Perhaps the care of 
the interests of one people is sufficient for all the wisdom 
of one legislature ; and that it is among nations as 
among individuals, that the happiness of the whole is 
best secured by each attending to its own peculiar 
interests. The proposition to be maintained by our 
adversaries, is, that manufactures, without protection, 
will, in due time, spring up in our country, and sustain 
themselves, in a competition with foreign fabrics, how- 
ever advanced the arts, and whatever the degree of 
protection may be in foreign countries. Now I contend 
that this proposition is refuted by all experience, ancient 
and modern, and in every country. If I am asked why 
unprotected industry should not succeed in a struggle 



22 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

with protected industry, I answer, the fact has ever 
been so, and that is sufficient ; I reply, that uniform 
EXPERiENCK evinces that it cannot succeed in such an 
iinequal contest, and that is siiflicient. If we speculate 
on the causes of this universal truth, we may differ 
about them. Still, the indisputable fact remains. And 
we should he as unwise in not availing ourselves of the 
guide which it furnishes, as a man would be who should 
refuse to bask in the rays of the sun, because he could 
not agree with Judge Woodward as to the nature of the 
substance of that planet, to which we are indebted for 
heat and light. If I were to attempt to particularize 
the causes which prevent the success of the manufac- 
turing arts, without protection, I should say, that they 
are — 1st, the obduracy of fixed habits. No nation, no 
individual, will easily change an established course of 
business, even if it be unprofitable ; and least of all is 
an agricultural people prone to innovation. With what 
reluctance do they not adopt improvements in the in- 
struments of husbandry, or in modes of cultivation ! If 
the farmer maks a good crop, and sells it badly, or 
makes a sliort crop, buoyed up by hope he perseveres, 
and trusts that a favorable change of the market, or of 
the seasons, will enable him, in the succeeding year, to 
repair llie misfortunes of the past. 2d, the uncertainty, 
fluctuation, and unsteadiness of the home market, when 
liable to an unrestricted influx of fabrics from all foreign 
nations ; and 3d, the superior advance of skill, and 
amount of capit;il, which foreign nations have obtained, 
by the protection of their own industry. From the 
latter, or from other causes, the unprotected manufac- 
tures, arc exposed to the danger of being crushed in 
their infancy, either by tlie design or from the necessities 
of foreign manufactures, (lentlcmen are incredulous as 
to the attempts of foreign nierchaiits and manufacturers 
to accomplisii the destruction of ours. Why should 
they not make such attempts? If the Scottish manu- 
facturer, by surcharging our market, in one year, with 
tlie article of cotton bagging, for example, should so 
reduce the price as to discourage and put down the 
home manufacture, he would secure to himself the 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 23 

inoiioply of the supply. And now, having the exckisive 
possession of the market, perhaps for a long term of 
years, he might be more than indemnified for his first 
loss, in the subsequent rise in the price of the article. 
What have we not seen under our own eyes! The 
competition for the transportation of the mail, between 
this place and Baltimore, so excited, that, to obtain it, 
an individual offered, at great loss, to carry it a whole 
year for one dollar ! His calculation, no doubt, was 
that, by driving his competitor ofT the road, and securing 
to himself the carriage of the mail, he would be after- 
wards able to repair his original loss by new contracts 
with the department. But the necessities of foreign 
manufacturers, without imputing to them any sinister 
design, may oblige them to throw into our markets the 
fabrics which have accumulated on their hands, in con- 
sequence of obstruction in the ordinary vents, or from 
over-calculation ; and the forced scales, at losing prices, 
may prostrate our establishments. From this view of 
the subject, it follows, that, if we would place the indus- 
try of our country upon a solid and unshakable founda- 
tion, we must adopt the protecting policy, which has 
every where succeeded, and reject that which would 
abandon it, which has every where failed. 



ON AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

Before the Jlmerican Colonization Society, January 
20, 1827. 

This Society is well aware, I repeat, that they 
cannot touch the subject of slavery. But it is no ob- 
jection to their scheme, limited as it is exclusively to 
those free people of color who are willing to migrate, 
that it admits of indefinite extension and application, by 
those, who alone, having the competent authority, may 
choose to adopt and apply it. Our object has been to 
point out the way, to show that colonization is praclica- 
h\e, and to leave it to those States or individuals, who 



24 . ASJILANI; TliXT BOOK. 

may be pleased to engage in the object, to prosecute it. 
We have demonstrated that a colony may be planted in 
Africa, by the fact that an American colony tliere exists. 
The problem which has so long and so deeply interested 
the thoughts of good and patriotic men is solved. A 
country and a home have been found, to which the 
African race may be sent, to the promotion of their 
happiness and our own. 

But, Mr. Vice-President, I shall not rest contented 
with the fact of the establishment of the colony, conclu- 
sive as it ought to be deemed, of the practicability of 
our purpose. I shall proceed to show, by reference to 
indisputable statistical details and calculations, that it is 
within the compass of reasonable human means. I am 
sensible of the tediousness of all arithmetical data, but 
I will endeavour to simplify them as much as possible. 
It will be borne in mind that the aim of the Society is 
to establish in Africa a colony of the free African popu- 
lation of the United States, to an extent wliich shall be 
beneficial both to Africa and America. The whole free 
colored population of the United States amounted in 
1790, to fifty-nine thousand four hundred and eighty- 
one ; in 1800, to one hundred and ten thousand and 
seventy-two; in 1810, to one hundred and eighty-six 
thousand four hundred and forty-six ; and in 1820, to 
two hundred and thirty-three thousand five hundred and 
thirty. The ratio of annual increase during the first 
term of ten years was about eight and a half per cent, 
per annum ; during the second about seven per cent, per 
annum ; and during the third, a little more than two 
and a half. The very great diflerence in the rate of 
annual increase during those several terms, may proba- 
bly be accounted for by the effect of the number of 
voluntary emancipations operating with more infiuence 
upon the total smaller amount of free colored persons at 
the first of those periods, and by the facts of the insur- 
rection in St. Domingo, and the acquisition of Louisiana, 
both of which, occurring during the first and second 
terms, added considerably to the number of our free 
colored population. 

Of all descriptions of our population, that of the 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 25 

free colored, taken in the aggregate, is the least prolific, 
because of the checks arising from vice and want. 
During the ten years between 1810 and 1820, when no 
extraneous causes existed to prevent a fair competition 
in the increase between the slave and the free African 
race, the former increased at the rate of nearly three per 
cent, per annum, whilst the latter did not much exceed 
two and a half. Hereafter it may be safely assumed, 
and I venture to predict will not be contradicted by the 
return of the next census, that the increase of the free 
black population will not surpass two and a half per 
cent, per annum. Their amount at the last census, 
being two hundred and thirty-three thousand five hun- 
dred and thirty, for tlic sake of round numbers, their 
annual increase may be assumed to be six thousand at 
the present time. Now if this number could be an- 
nually transported from the United States during a term 
of years, it is evident that, at the end of that term, the 
parent capital will not have increased, but will have 
been kept down, at least to what it was at the com- 
mencement of the term. Is it practicable, then, to 
colonize annually six thousand persons from the United 
States, without materially impairing or affecting any of 
the great interests of the United States ? This is the 
question presented to the judgments of the legislative 
authoritiea of our country. This is the v^hole scheme 
of the society. From its actual experience, derived 
from the expenses which have been incurred in trans- 
porting the persons already sent to Africa, the entire 
average expense of each colonist, young and old, includ- 
ing passage money and subsistence, may be stated at 
twenty dollars per head. There is reason to believe 
that it may be reduced considerably below that sum. 
Estimating that to be the expense, the total cost of trans- 
porting six thousand souls annually to Africa would be 
one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. The tonnage 
requisite to effect the object, calculating two persons to 
every five tons, (which is the provision of existing law,) 
would be fifteen thousand tons. But, as each vessel 
I'-ould probably make two voyages in the year, it may 
be reduced to seven thousand five hundred. And 



26 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

as both onr mercantile and military marine might be 
occsaionally employed on this collateral service, without 
injury to the main object of the voyage, a further abate- 
ment migiit be safely made in the aggregate amount of 
the necessary tonnage. The navigation concerned in 
the commerce between the colony and the United Slates, 
(and it already begins to supply subjects of an interest- 
ing trade,) might be incidentally employed to the same 
end. 

Is the annual expenditure of a sum no larger than 
one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, and the 
annual employment of seven thousand five hundred tons 
of shipping, too much for reasonable exertion, consid- 
ering the magnitude of tlie object in view ? Are they 
not, on the C(Miirary, within the compass of moderate 
effurts I 

Here is the whole scheme of the Society — a pro- 
ject which has been pronounced visionary by those who 
have never given themselves the trouble to examine it, 
but to which I believe most unbiased men will yield 
their cordial assent, after tliey have investigated it. 

Limited as the project is, by the society, to a colony 
to be formed by the free and unconstrained consent of 
free persons of color, it is no objection, but on the con- 
trary, a great recommendation of the plan, that it admits 
of being taken up and applied on a scale of much more 
comprehensive utility. The society knows, and it 
affords just cause of felicitation, that all or any one of 
the States which tolerate slavery, may carry the scheme 
of colonization into effect, in regard to the slaves within 
their respective limits, and thus ultimately rid them- 
selves of a universally acknowledged curse. A refer- 
ence to the results of the several enumerations of the 
population of the United States will incontestably prove 
the practicability of its application on the more exten- 
sive scale. The slave population of the United Slates 
amounted in 1790, to six hundred and ninety-seven 
thousand six hundred and ninety-seven; in 1800, to 
eight hundred and ninety-six thousand eight hundred 
and forty-nine; in 1810, to eleven hundred and ninety- 
one thousand three hundred and sixtv-four ; and in 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 27 

1820, to fifteen hiindretl and thirty-eiglit thousand one 
hundred and twenty-eight. Tlie rate of annual increase, 
(rejecting fractions, and taking the integer to which 
they make the nearest approacli,) during the first term 
of ten years, was not quite three per centum per annum, 
during the second, a little more than three per centum 
per annum, and during the third, a little less than three 
per centum. The mean ratio of increase for the whole 
period of thirty years was very little more than three per 
centum per annum. During the first two periods, the 
native stock was augmented by importations from 
Africa, in those States which continued to tolerate them, 
and by the acquisition of Louisiana. Virginia, to her 
eternal honor, abolished the abominable traflfic among 
the earliest acts of her self-government. The last term 
alone presents the natural increase of the capital, unaf- 
fected by any extraneous causes. 'Jhat authorizes, as 
a safe assumption, that the future increase will not ex- 
ceed three per centum per annum. As our population 
increases, the value of slave labor will diminish, in con- 
sequence of the superior advantages in the employment 
of free labor. And wiien the value of slave labor shall 
be materially lessened, either by the multiplication of 
the supply of slaves beyond the demand, or by the 
competition between slave and free labor, the annual 
increase of slaves will be reduced, in consequence of 
the abatement of the motives to provide for and rear the 
o Hi's p ring. 

There is a moral fitness in the idea of returning to 
Africa her children, whose ancestors have been torn 
from her by the ruthless hand of fraud and violence. 
Transplanted in a foreign land, they will carry back to 
their native soil the rich fruiis of religion, civilization, 
law, and liberty. May it not be one of the great de- 
signs of the lii'ler of the universe, (whose ways are 
often inscrutable by short-sighted mortals,) thus to trans- 
form an original crime into a signal blessing, to that 
most unfortunate portion of the globe. 



^v 



28 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 



DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM. 

In the Senate of the United States, February 2d, dd, 
and (jth, 1832. 

Eight years ago, it was my painful duty to present 
to the other House of Congress, an iinexaggerated pic- 
ture of the general distress pervading the wiiole hind. 
We must all yet remember some of its frightful features. 
We all know that the people were then oppressed and 
borne down by an enormous load of debt ; that the value 
of property was at the lowest point of depression; that 
ruinous sales and sacrifices were every where made of 
real estate ; tliat stop laws, and relief laws, and paper 
money were adopted to save the people from impending 
destruction ; that a deficit in the public revenue existed, 
wliich compelled government to seize upon, and divert 
from its legitimate object the appropriations to the sink- 
ing fund, to redeem tlie national debt ; and that our 
commerce and navigation were threatened with a com- 
plete paralysis. In short, sir, if 1 were to select any 
term of seven years since the adoption of the present 
constitution which exhibited a scene of the most wide- 
spread dismay and desolation, it would be exactly that 
term of seven years wiiich immediately preceded the 
establishment of the tarilTof 1824. 

1 have now to perform the more pleasing task of 
exhibiting an imperfect sketch of the existing state of 
the unparalleled prosperity of the country. On a general 
survey, we behold cultivation extended, the arts flour- 
ishing, the face of the country improved, our people 
fully and profitably employed, and tlie public counte- 
nance exhibiting tranquility, contentment and happiness. 
And if we descend into particulars, we have the agreea- 
ble contemplation of a people out of debt; land rising 
slowly in value, but in a secure and salutary degree ; a 
ready though not extravagant market for all the surplus 
productions of our industry; innumerable flocks and 
herds browsing and gamboling on ten thousand hills and 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 29 

plains, covered with rich and verdant grasses ; our cities 
expanded, and whole villages springing up, as it were, 
by enchantment; our exports and imports increased and 
increasing ; our tonnage, foreign and coastwise, swelling 
and fully occupied ; the rivers of our interior animated 
by the perpetual thunder and lightning of countless 
steam-boats ; the currency sound and abundant ; the 
public debt of two wars nearly redeemed ; and, to crown 
all, the public treasury overflowing, embarrassing Con- 
gress, not to find subjects of taxation, but to select the 
objects which shall be liberated from the impost. If the 
term of seven years were to be selected, of the greatest 
prosperity which this people have enjoyed since the es- 
tablishment of their present constitution, it would be 
exactly that period of seven years which immediately 
followed the passage of the tariff of 1824. 

This transformation of the condition of the country 
from gloom and distress to brightness and prosperity, 
has been mainly the work of American legislation, fos- 
tering American industry, instead of allowing it to be 
controlled by foreign legislation, cherishing foreign in- 
dustry. 

Thus, sir, has this great system of protection been 
gradually built, stone upon stone, and step by step, 
from the fourth of July, 1789, down to the present 
period. In every stage of its progress it has received 
the deliberate sanction of Congress. A vast majority 
of the people of the United States has approved and 
continue to approve it. Every chief magistrate of the 
United States, from Washington to the present, in some 
form or other, has given to it the authority of his name ; 
and however the opinions of the existing President are 
interpreted South of Mason's and Dixon's line, on the 
north they are at least understood to favor the establish- 
ment of a judicious tariff. 

The question, therefore, which we are now called 
upon to determine, is not whether we shall establish a 
new and doubtful system of policy, just proposed, and 
for the first time presented to our consideration, but 
whether we shall iDreak down and destroy a long esta- 
blished system, patiently and carefully built up and 



30 ASHLAND TKXT BOOK. 

sanctioned, during a series of years, again and again, by 
the nation and its highest and most revered authorities. 

When gentlemen liave succeeded in their design of 
an immediate or gradual destruction of the American 
System, what is their substitute? Free trade! Free 
trade ! The call for free trade is as unavailing as the 
cry of a spoiled child, in its nurse's arms, for the moon, 
or the stars that glitter in the firmament of heaven. It 
never has existed, it never will exist. Trade implies, 
at least two parties. To be free, it should be fair, equal 
and reciprocal. But if we throw our ports wide open to 
the admission of foreign productions, free of all duty, 
what ports of any other foreign nation shall we find open 
to the free aduiission of our surplus produce? We may 
break down all barriers to free trade on our part, but the 
work will not be complete until foreign powers shall have 
removed tlieirs. There would be freedom on one side, 
and restrictions, prohibitions and exclusions on the other. 
The bolls, and the bars, and the chains of all other na- 
tions will remain undisturbed. It is, indeed, possible, 
that our industry and commerce would accommodate 
themselves to this unequal and unjust, state of tilings ; 
for, such is the flexibility of our nature, that it bends it- 
self to all circumstances. The wretched prisoner in- 
carcerated in a jail, after a long time becomes reconciled 
to his solitude, and regularly notches down the passing 
days of his confinement. 

Gentlem-en deceive themselves. It is not free trade 
that they are recommending to our acceptance. It is in 
effect, the British colonial system that we are invited to 
adopt; and, if tlieir policy prevail, it will lead substanti- 
ally to the re-colonization of these States, under the 
commercial dominion of Great Britain. And whom do 
we find some of the principal supporters, out of (con- 
gress, of this foreign system ? Mr. President, there are 
some foreigners who always remain exotics, and never 
become naturalized in our country ; whilst, happily, 
there are many others who readily attach tliemselves to 
our principles and our institutions. The honest, patient 
and industrious German readily unites with our people, 
establishes himself upon some of our fat land, fills hi.? 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 31 

capacious barn, and enjoys in tranquility, the abundant 
fruits which his diligence gathers around him, always 
ready to fly to the standard of his adopted country, or 
of its laws, when called by the duties of patriotism. 
The gay, the versatile, the philosophic Frenchman, ac- 
commodating himself cheerfully to all the vicissitudes of 
life, incorporates himself without difficulty in our society. 
But, of all foreigners, none amalgamate themselves so 
quickly with our people as the natives of the Emerald 
Isle. In some of the visions which have passed through 
my imagination, I have supposed that Ireland was origi- 
nally, part and parcel of this continent, and that, by some 
extraordinary convulsion of nature, it was torn from 
America, and drifting across the ocean, was placed in 
the unfortunate vicinity of Great Britain. The same 
open-heartedness ; the same generous hospitality ; the 
same careless and uncalculating indifference about human 
life, characterize the inhabitants of both countries. Ken- 
tucky has been sometimes called the Ireland of America. 
And I have no doubt, that if the current of emigration 
were reversed, and set from America upon the shores of 
Europe, instead of bearing from Europe to America, 
every American emigrant to Ireland would there find, 
as every Irish emigrant here finds, a hearty welcome 
and a happy home! 

"I will now, Mr. President, proceed to a more 
particular consideration of the arguments urged against 
the Protective System, and an inquiry into its practical 
operation, especially on the cotton growing country. 
And as I wish to state and meet the argument fairly, I 
invite the correction of my statement of it, if necessary. 
It is alleged that the system operates prejudicially to the 
cotton planter, by diminishing the foreign demand for his 
staple; that we cannot sell to Great Britain unless we 
buy from her; that the import duty is equivalent to 
an export duty, and falls upon the cotton grower ; that 
South Carolina pays a disproportionate quota of the 
public revenue ; that an abandonment of the protective 
policy would lead to an augmentation of our exports of 
an amount not less thm one hundred and fifty millions 
of dollars ; and finally that the South cannot partake of 



33 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

the advantages of manufacturing, if there be any. Let 
us examine these various propositions in detail. 1 . That 
the foreign demand for cotton is diminished, and that 
we cannot sell to Great Britain unless we buy from her. 
The demand of both our great foreign customers is 
constantly and annually increasing. It is true, that the 
ratio of the increase may not be equal to that of produc- 
tion ; but this is owing to the fact that the power of 
producing the raw material is much greater, and is, 
therefore, constantly in advance of the power of con- 
sumption. A single fact will illustrate. The average 
produce of laborers engaged in the cultivation of cotton, 
may be estimated at five bales, or fifteen hundred weight 
to the hand. Supposing the annual average consumption 
of each individual who uses cotton cloth to be five 
pounds, one hand can produce enough of the raw mate- 
rial to clothe three hundred. 

The argument comprehends two errors, one of fact 
and the other of principle. It assumes that we do not 
in fact purchase of Great Britain. What is the true 
state of the case? There are certain, but very few 
articles which it is thought sound policy requires that 
we should manufacture at home, and on these the tariflf 
operates. But, with respect to all the rest, and much 
the larger number of articles, of taste, of fashion, and 
utility, they are subject to no other than revenue duties, 
and are freely introduced. I have before me from the 
treasury a statement of our imports from England, Scot- 
land and Ireland, including ten years, preceding the last, 
and three quarters of the last year, from which it will 
appear th;\t, although there are some fluctuations in the 
amount of the different years, the largestamount import- 
ed in any one year has been since the tariff of 1824, 
and that the last year's importation, when the returns of 
the fourth quarter shall be received, will probably be the 
greatest in the whole term of eleven years," 

Now, if it be admitted that there is a less amount 
of the protected articles imported from Great Britain, 
she may be, and probably is, compensated for the 
deficiency, by the increased consumption in America of 
the articles of her industry not falling within the scope 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 33 

of the policy of our protection. The establishment of 
manufactures among us excites the creation of wealth, 
and this gives new powers of consumption, which are 
gratified by the purchase of foreign objects. A poor 
nation can never be a great consuming nation. Its pov- 
erty will limit its consumption to bare subsistence. 

The erroneous principle which the argument includes, 
is, that it devolves on us, the duty of taking care that 
Great Britain shall be enabled to purchase from us with- 
out exacting from Great Britain the corresponding duty. 
If it be true, on one side, that nations are bound to shape 
their policy in reference to the ability of foreign pow- 
ers, it must be true on both sides of the Atlantic. And 
this reciprocal obligation ought to be emphatically 
regarded towards the nation supplying the raw material, 
by the manufacturing nation, because the industry of the 
latter gives four or five values to what had been produced 
by the industry of the former. 

But, does Great Britain practice towards us upon the 
principles which we are now required to observe in 
regard to her ? The exports to the United Kingdom, as 
appears from the same treasury statement just adverted 
to, during eleven years, from 1821 to 18.31, and exclu- 
sive of the fourth quarter of the last year, fall short of 
the amount of imports by upwards of forty-six millions 
of dollars, and the total amount, when the returns of 
that quarter are received, will exceed fifty millions of 
dollars ! It is surprising how we have been able to 
sustain, for so long a time, a trade so very unequal. 
We must have been absolutely ruined by it, if the un- 
favorable balance had not been neutralized by more 
profitable commerce with other parts of the world. Of 
all nations. Great Britain has the least cause to complain 
of tlie trade between the two countries. Our imports 
from that single power are nearly one-third of the 
entire amount of our importations from all foreign 
countries together. Great Britain constantly acts on 
the maxim of buying only what she wants and cannot 
produce, and selling to foreign nations the utmost 
amount she can. In conformity with this maxim, she 
excludes articles of prime necessity produced by us — 



34 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

equally, if not more necessary than any of her industry, 
which we tax, although the admission of those articles 
would increase our ability to purchase from her, accord- 
ing to the argument of gentlemen. 

If we purchased still less from Great Britain than we 
do, and our conditions were reversed, so that the value 
of her imports from this country exceeded that of her 
exports to it, she would only then be compelled to do 
what we have so long done, and what South Carolina 
does, in her trade with Kentucky, make up for the 
unfavorable balance by trade with other places and 
countries. How does she now dispose of the one 
hundred and sixty millions of dollars worth of cotton 
fabrics, which she annually sells ? Of that amount the 
United States do not purchase five per cent. AVhat be- 
comes of the other ninety-five per cent? Is it not sold 
to other powers, and would not their markets remain, if 
ours were totally shut? Would she not continue, as 
she now finds it her interest, to purchase the raw mate- 
rial from us, to supply those markets ? Would she be 
guilty of the folly of depriving herself of markets to 
the amount of upwards of one hundred and fifty millions 
of dollars, because we refused her a market for some 
eight or ten millions ? 

But if there were diminution of the British demand for 
cotton equal to the loss of a market for the few British 
fabrics which are within the scope of our protective 
policy, the question would still remain, whether the 
cotton planter is not amply indemnified by the creation 
of additional demand elsewhere ? With respect to the 
cotton-grower, it is the totalitxj of the demand, and not 
its distribiitinn, which affects his interests. If any 
system of policy will augment the aggregate of the de- 
mand, that system is favorable to his interests, altliough 
its tendency may be to vary the theatre of the demand. 
It could not, for example, be injurious to him, if, instead 
of Great Britain continuing to receive the entire quan- 
tity of cotton which she now does, two or three lum- 
dred thousand bales of it were taken to the other side of 
the channel, and increased to that extent, the Frencli 
demand. It would be better for him, because it is 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 35 

always better to have several markets than one. Now, 
if, instead of a transfer to the opposite side of the chan- 
nel, of those two or three hundred thousand bales, they 
are transported to the nortliern States, can that be inju- 
rious to the cotton-grower ? Is it not better for him ? 
Is it not better to have a market at home, unaffected by 
war or other foreign causes, for that amount of his staple? 
If the establishment of American manufactures, there- 
fore, had the sole effect of creating a new and an Amer- 
ican demand for cotton, exactly to the same extent in 
which it lessened the British demand, there would be 
no just cause of complaint against the tariff. The gain 
in one place would precisely equal the loss in the other. 
But the true state of the matter is much more favorable 
to the cotton-grower. It is calculated that the cotton 
manufactories of the United States absorb at least two 
hundred thousand bales of cotton annually. I believe it 
to be more. 'I'he two ports of Boston and Providence 
alone received during the last year, near one hundred 
and ten thousand bales. The amount is annually in- 
creasing. The raw material of that two hundred thou- 
sand bales is worth six millions, and there is an addi- 
tional value conferred by the manufacturer of eighteen 
millions; it being generall}' calculated that, in such 
cotton fabrics as we are in the habit of making, the 
manufacture constitutes ihree-fourlhs of the value 
of the article. If, therefore, tiiese twenty-four mil- 
lions worth of cotton fabrics were not made in the 
United States, but were manufactured in Great Britain, 
in order to obtain them, we should have to add to the 
already enormous disproportion between the amount of 
our imports and exports, in the trade with Great Britain, 
the further sum of twenty-four millions, or deducting the 
price of the raw material, eighteen millions ! And will 
gentlemen tell me hov/ it would be possible for this 
country to sustain such a ruinous trade ? From all that 
portion of ihe United States lying North and East of 
James River, and West of the mountains. Great Britain 
receives comparatively nothing. How would it be 
possible for the inhabitants of that largest portion of our 
territory, to supply themselves with cotton fabrics, if 



36 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK, 

they were brought from England exclusively] They 
could not do it. But for the existence of the American 
manufacture, they would be compelled greatly to curtail 
their supplies, if not absolutely to suffer in their com- 
forts. By its existence at home, the circle of those 
exchanges is created which reciprocally diffuses among 
all who are embraced within it the productions of their 
respective industry. The cotton-grower sells the raw 
material to the manufacturer; he buys the iron, the 
bread, the meal, the coal, and the countless number of 
objects of his consumption from his fellow-citizens, and 
they in turn purchase his fabrics. Putting it upon the 
ground merely of supplying those with necessary ar- 
ticles who could not otherwise obtain them, ought there 
to be from any quarter, an objection to the only system 
by which that object, can be accomplished?' But can 
there be any doubt, with those who will reflect, that the 
actual amount of cotton consumed is increased by the 
home manufacture ? The main argument of gentlemen 
is founded upon the idea of mutual ability resulting from 
mutual exchauges. They would furnish an ability to 
foreign nations by purchasing from them, and I to our 
own people, by exchanges at home. If the American 
manufacture were discontinued, and that of England 
were to take its place, how would she sell the addition- 
al quantity of twenty-four millions of cotton goods, which 
we now make ? To us? That has been shown to be 
impracticable. To other foreign nations? She has 
already pushed her supplies to them to the utmost ex- 
tent. The ultimate consequence would then be, to 
diminish the total consumption of cotton, to say nothing 
now of the reduction of price that would take place by 
throwing into the ports of Great Britain the two liun- 
dred thousand bales, which no longer being manufactured 
in the United States would go thither. 

2d. That the import duty is equivalent to an export 
duty, and falls on the producer of cotton. 

'i'he framers of our Constitution, by granting the 
power to Congress to lay imports, and prohibiting that 
of laying an export duty, manifested that they did not 
regard them as equivalent. IVor does the common sense 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK 37 

of mankind. An export (luty"f\istens upon, and incnr- 
porates itself with, the article on which it is laid. The 
article cannot escape from it — it pursues and follows it, 
wherever the article goes ; and if in the foreign market, 
tiie supplj' is above or just equal to the demand, the 
amount of the export duly will be a clear deduction to 
the exporter from the price of the article. But an im- 
port duty on a foreign article leaves the exporter of the 
domestic article free, 1st, to import specie ; 2dly, goods 
which are free from the protecting duty ; or, 3dly, such 
goods as being chargeable with the protecting duty, he 
can sell at home, and thr;)W the duty on the consumer. 
But, it is confidently argued that the import duty falls 
upon the grower of cotton ; and the case has been put 
in debate, and again and again in conversation, of the 
South Carolina planter, who exports one liundred bales 
of cotton to Liverpool, exchanges them for one hundred 
bales of merchandise, and, when he brings them home, 
buing compelled to leave at the custom-house, forty 
bales in tiie form of duties. The argument is founded on 
the assumption that a duty of forty per cent, amounts to 
a subtraction of forty from the one hundred bales of 
merchandise. The first objection to it is, that it sup- 
poses a case of barter, which never occurs. If it be re- 
plied, that it nevertheless occurs in the operations of 
commerce, the answer would be that, since the export 
of Carolina cotton is chiefly made by New York or 
foreign merchants, the loss stated, if it really accrued, 
would fall upon them, and not upon the planter. But, 
to test the correctness of the hypothetical case, let us 
suppose that the duty, instead of forty per cent., should 
be one hundred and fifty, which is asserted to be the duty 
in some cases. Then, the planter would not only lose 
the whole hundred bales of merchandise, which he had 
gotten for his hundred bales of cotton, but he would 
have to purchase, with other means, an additional fifty 
bales, in order to enable him to pay the duties accruing 
on the proceeds of the cotton. Another answer is, that 
if the producer of cotton in America, exchanged against 
English fabrics pays the duly, the producer of those 
fabrics also pays it, and then it is twice paid. Such 



38 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

must be the consequence, unless the pruieiple is true on 
one side of the Atlantic, and false on the other. The 
true answer is, that the exporter of an article, if he in- 
vests its proceeds in a foreign market, takes care to 
make the investment in such merchandise, as when 
brought home, he can sell witli a fair profit ; and con- 
sequently, the consumer would pay the original cost, 
and charges and profit. 

3. The next objection to the American System is, 
that it subjects South Carolina to the payment of an un- 
due proportion of the public revenue. The basis of this 
objection is the assumption, shown to have been erro- 
neous, that the producer of the exports from this coun- 
try pays the duty on its imports, instead of the consumer 
of those imports. The amount which South Carolina 
really contributes to the public revenue, no more than 
any other State can be precisely ascertained. It depends 
upon her consumption of articles paying duties, and we 
may make an approximation sufficient for all practical 
purposes. The cotton planters of the valley of the 
Mississippi with whom 1 am acquainted, generally 
expend about one-third of their income in the sup- 
port of their families and plantations. On this sub- 
ject I hold in my hands a statement from a friend of 
mine, of great accuracy, and a member of the Senate. 
According to this statement, in a crop of ten thousand 
dollars, the expenses may fluctuate between two thou- 
sand eight hundred dollars and three thousand two hun- 
dred dollars. Of this sum, about one-fourth, from 
seven to eight hundred dollars, may be laid out in 
articles paying the protecting duty ; the residue is 
disbursed for provisions, mules, horses, oxen, wages of 
overseer, &c. Estimating the exports of South Caro- 
lina at eight millions, one-third is two millions six 
hundred and sixty-six thousand six hundred and sixt}'- 
two dollars ; of which one-fourth will be six hundred 
and sixty-six thousand six hundred and sixty-six and 
two-thinls dollars. Now supposing the protecting 
duty to be fifty per cent., and that it all enters into the 
price of the article, the amount paid by South Carolina 
would only be three hundred and thirty-three thousand 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 39 

three hundred and thirty-three and one third dollars. 
But the total revenue of the United States may be stated 
at twenty-five millions, of which the proportion of 
South Carolina, whatever standarrl, whether of wealth 
or population, be adopted, would be about one million. 
Of course, on this view of the subject, she actually pays 
only about one-third of her fair and legitimate share. I 
repeat, that I have no personal knowledge of the habits 
of actual expenditure in South Carolina; they may be 
greater than I have stated, in respect to other parts of 
the cotton country ; but if they are, that fact does not 
arise from any defect in the system of public policy. 



ON THE PUBLIC LANDS. 

Senate of the United States, 1832. 

No subject which b.ad presented itself to the present, 
or perhaps any preceding Congress, was of greater 
magnitude than that of the public lands. There was 
another, indeed, which possessed a more exciting and 
absorbing interest — but the excitement was happily but 
temporary in its nature. Long after we shall cease to 
be aijitated by the tariff, ages after our manufactures 
shall have acquired a stability and perfection which 
will enable the:n successfully to cope with the manufac- 
tures of any other country, the public lands will remain 
a subject of deep and enduring interest. Li whatever 
view we contemplate them, there is no question 
of such vast importance. As to their extent, there is 
public land enough to found an empire ; stretching 
across the immense contineut, from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific ocean, from the Gulf of Mexico to the north- 
western lakes, the quantity, according to official surveys 
and estimates, amounting to the prodigious sum of one 
billion and eighty millions of acres ! As to the duration 
of the interest regarded as a source of comfort to our 
people, and of public income — during the last year, 
when the greatest quantity was sold that ever in one 



40 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

year, had been previously sold, it amounted to less than 
three millions of acres, producing three millions and a 
half of dollars. Assuming that year as affording tlie 
standard rate at which the lands will be annually sold, 
it would require three hundred years to dispose of them. 
But the sales will probably be accelerated from increased 
population and other causes. We may safely, however, 
anticipate that long, if not centuries after the present 
day, the representatives of our children's children may 
be deliberating in the halls of Congress, on laws relating 
to the public lands. 

Tlie subject in other points of view, challenged the 
fullest attention of an American statesman. If there 
were any one circumstance more than all others which 
distinguish our happy condition from that of the nations 
of the old world, it was the possession of this vast 
national property, and the resources which it afforded 
to our people and our government. No European 
nation, (possibly with the exception of Russia,) com- 
manded such an ample resource. With respect to the 
other republics of this continent, we have no information 
that any of them have yet adopted a regular system of 
previous survey and subsequent sale of their wild lands, 
in convenient tracts, well defined, and adapted to the 
wants of all. On the contrary, the probability is, that 
they adhere to the ruinous and mad system of old Spain, 
according to which large unsurveyed districts are granted 
to favorite individuals, prejudicial to them, who often 
sink under the incumbrance and die in poverty, whilst 
the regular current of emigration is checked and diverted 
from its legitimate channels. 

If the power and the principle of the proposed distri- 
bution be satisfactory to the Senate, I think the objects 
cannot fail to be equally so. They arc education, in- 
ternal improvements, and colonization — all great and 
beneficent objects — all national in their nature. No 
mind can be cultivated and improved ; no work of in- 
ternal improveniont can be executed in any part of the 
Union, nor any person of color transported from any of 
its ports, in which the whole Union is not interested. 
The prosperity of the whole is an aggregate of the 
prosperity of the parts. 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 41 

The Stales, each judging for itself, will select 
among the objects enumerated in the bill, that which 
comports best with its own policy. There is no com- 
pulsion in the choice. I'^ome will prefer, perhaps, to 
apply the fnnd to the extinction of debt, now burden- 
some, created for internal improvement ; some to new 
objects of interval improvement; others to education; 
and others again to colonization. It may be supposed 
possible that the States will divert the fund from the 
specified purposes : but against such a misapplication 
we have, in the first place, the security which arises 
out of their presumed good faith; and, in the second, 
the power to withhold subsequent, if there has been any 
abuse in previous appropriation." 



ON THE COMPROMISE ACT. 

United Slates Senate, 1833. 

I have been accused of ambition in presenting this 
measure. Ambition ! inordinate ambition ! If I had 
tliought of myself only, I should have never brought it 
forward. I know well the perils to which I expose 
myself; the risk of alienating faithful and valued friends, 
with but little prospect of making new ones, if any new 
ones could compensate for the loss of those whom we 
have long tried and loved ; and the honest misconcep- 
tions both of friends and foes. Ambition ! If I had 
listened to its soft and seducing whispers ; If I had 
yielded myself to the dictates of a cold, calculating, and 
prudential policy, I would have stood still and unmoved. 
I might even have silently gazed on the raging storm, 
enjoyed its loudest thunders, and left those who are 
charged with the care of the vessel of State, to conduct 
it as they could. I have been heretofore often unjustly 
accused of ambition. Low, grovelling souls, who are 
utterly incapable of elevating themselves to the higher 
and nobler duties of pure patriotism — beings who, for 
ever keeping their own selfish aims in view, decide all 
2* 



42 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

public measures by their presumed influence on their 
aggrandizement, judge me by the venal rule which they 
prescribe to themselves. I have given to the winds 
those false accusations, as I consign that which now 
impeaches my motives. 1 have no desire for office, not 
even the highest. Tlie most exalted is but a prison, in 
which the incarcerated incumbent daily receives his 
cold, heartless visitants, marks his weary hours, and is 
cut ofl" from the practical enjoyment of all the blessings 
of genuine freedom. I am no candidate for any office 
in the gift of tlie people of these States, united or sepa- 
rated ; I never wish, never expect to be. Pass this bill, 
tranquilize the country, restore confidence and affection 
in the Union, and I am willing to go home to Ashland, 
and renounce public service for ever. I should there 
find, in its groves, under its shades, on its lawns, amidst 
my flocks and herds, in the bosom of my family, sin- 
cerity and truth, attachment and fidelity, and gratitude, 
which I have not always found in the walks of public 

life Yes, I have ambition, but it is the ambition of 

being the humble instrument, in the hands of Providence, 
to reconcile a divided people, once more to revive con- 
cord and harmony in a distracted land — the pleasing 
ambition of contemplaiing the glorious spectacle of a 
free, united, prosperous, and fraternal people !" 

Let me, in a f^ew words, present to the Senate what 
are my own views as to the structnre of this government. 
I hold that no powers can legitimately be exercised under 
it but such as are expressly delegated, and those which 
are necessary to carry these into effect. Sir, the execu- 
tive power as existing in this government, is not to be 
traced to the notions of Montesquieu, or of any other 
writer of that class, in the abstract nature of the execu- 
tive power. Neither is the legislative nor the judicial 
power to be decided by any such reference. These 
several powers with us, whatever they may be elsewhere, 
are just what the constitution has made them, and no- 
thing more. And as to the general clauses in which re- 
ference is made to either, they are to be controlled and 
interpreted by those where these several powers are 
specially delegated, otherwise the executive will become 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 43 

a ffreat vovte.v ihat must end in swallowing up all the 
rest. Nor will tiie judicial power be any longer res- 
trained by the restraining clauses in the constitution, 
which relate to its exercise. What then,' it will be 
asked, does this clause, that the President shall see that 
the laws are faithfully executed, mean ? Sirs, it means 
nothing more nor less than this, that if resistance is 
made to the laws, he shall take care that resistance shall 
cease. Congress by the 1st article of tite 8tli section 
of the constitution is required to provide for calling out 
the militia to execute the laws, in case of resistance. 
Sir, it might as well be contended under that clause, 
that Congress have the power of determining what are, 
and what* are not the laws of the land. Congress has 
the power of calling out the military ; well sir, what is 
the President, by the constitution? He is commander of 
the army and navy of the Uniied States, and of the mili- 
tia when called out into actual service. When, then, 
we are here told that he is clothed with the whole phy- 
sical power of the nation, and when we are afterwards 
told, that we must take care that the laws are faithfully 
executed, is it possible that any man can be so lost to 
t!ie love of liberty, as not to admit that this goes no 
farther than to remove any resistance which may be 
made to the execution of the laws ? We have established 
a system in which power has been carefully divided 
among different departments of the government. And 
we have been told a thousand times, that this division 
is indispensable as a safe-guard to civil liberty. We 
have designated the departments, and have established 
in eacli, officers to examine the power belonging to 
each. The President, it is true, presides over the whole ; 
his eye surveys the whole extent of the system in all 
its movements. But has he power to enter into the 
courts, for example, and tell them what is to be done ? 
Or may he come here, and tell us the same ? Or when 
we have made a law, can he withhold the power neces- 
sary to its practical effect ? He moves, it is true, in a 
high, a glorious sphere. It is his to watch over the 
whole with a paternal eye; and, when any one wheel 
of the vast machine is for a time interrupted by the oc- 



44 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

ciirrence of invasion or rebellion, it is his care to propel 
its movements, and to furnish it with the requisite 
means of performing its appropriate duty in its own 
place. 

That this is the true interpretation of the constitutional 
clause to which I have alluded, is inferred from the total 
silence of all contemporaneous expositions of that instru- 
ment on the subject. I have myself (and when it was 
not in ray power personally, have caused others to aid 
me,) made researches into the numbers of the Federalist ; 
the debates in the Virginia convention, and in the con- 
ventions of other States, as well as all other sources of 
information to which I could obtain access, and I have 
not, in a solitary instance, found the slightest color for 
the claims set up in these most extraordinary times for 
the President, that he has authority to afford or with- 
hold at pleasure the means of enforcing the laws, and to 
superintend and control an officer charged with a specific 
duty, made by the law exclusively his. But, sir, I have 
found some authorities which strongly militate against 
any such claim. If the doctrine be indeed true, then it 
is most evident that there is no longer any control over 
our affairs than that exerted b)' the President. If it be> 
true that when a duty is by law specifically assigned to 
a particular officer, the President may go into his office 
and control him in the manner of performing it, then is 
it most manifest that all barriers for the safety of the 
treasury are gone. Sir, it is that union of the purse and 
the sword, in the hand of one man, which constitutes 
the' best definition of tyranny which our language can 
give. 



ON THE LAND DISTRIBUTION. 

In the Senate of the United States December 24, 1835. 

I feel it incumbent on me to make a brief explanation 
of the highly important measure which I have now the 
honor to propose. 'J'he bill, which I desire to introduce. 



ASHLAND IBXT BOOK. - 45 

provides for the distribution of the profeeds of ihr public 
lands in the year 18H3, '34, 'iJS. '30 and 'H7, among 
the twenty-four States of the Union, and cof. lornis sub- 
stantially to that which passed in 1833. It ».. therefore 
of a temporary character ; bi.L if it shill be .ourid to have 
a salutary operation, it will be in the power of a tUvir.c 
Cono-ress to give it an indefinite contiiiujnce. and, ti 
otherwise, it will expire by its own terms. In tiic event 
of war unfortunately breaking out with any foreigii 
power, the bill is to cease, and the fund which it dis- 
tributes is to be applied to the prosecution of the war. 
The bill directs that ten per cent, of the net proceeds of 
the public lands, sold within the limits of the seven 
new States, shall be set apart for them, in addition to the 
five per cent, reserved by their several compacts with 
the United States; and that the residue of the proceeds, 
whether from sales made in the States or Territories, 
shall be divided among the twenty-four States in pror 
portion to their respective federal population. In this 
respect the bill conforms to that which was introduced 
in 1832. For one I should have been willing to have 
allowed the new States twelve and a half percent., but 
as that was objected to by the President, in his veto 
message, and has been opposed in other quarters, 1 
thought it best to restrict the allowance to the more 
moderate smn. The bill also contains large and liberal 
grants of land to several of the new States, to place them 
upon an equality with others to which the bounty of 
Congress has been heretofore extended, and provides 
that, when other States shall, be admitted into the Union, 
they shall receive their share of the common fund. 

The nett amount of the sales of the public lands in the 
year 1833, was the sum of $3,967,682 55, in the year 
1834, was $4,857,600 69, and in the year 1835, accord- 
ing to actual receipts in the three first quarters and an 
estimate of the fourth, is $12,222,121 15; making an 
aggregate for the three years of $21,047,404 39. This 
asfgregate is what the bill proposes to distribute and pay 
to "the twenty-four States on the first day of May, 1836, 
upon the principles which I have stated. The difference 
between the estimate made by the Secretary of the 



ie> ASULANB TKXT BOOK. 

Treasur. ' which I hjvc offered of the product 

of the la;, ^iuiriet of this year, arises from my having 
taken, as ';'ie probable sum, one-third of the total amount 
of the ihroc lu ^i quarters, and he some other conjectural 
siun. D*;lucting from the $21,047,404 39 the fifteen 
per r- ,.n. to which the seven new States, according to 
•he bill, will be first entitled, amounting to $2,612,350 
18, there will remain for distribution among the twenty- 
four States of the Union the sum of $18,435,054 21. 
Of this sum the proportion of Kentucky will be $960,- 
947 41 ; of Virginia, the sum of $1,581,669 39; of 
North Carolina, $988,632 42 ; and of Pennsylvania, 
$2,083,233 32. The proportion of Indiana, including 
the fifteen per cent, will be $855,588 23 ; of Ohio, 
$1,677, 110 84, and of Mississippi, $958,945 42. And the 
proportions of all the twenty-four States are indicated in 
a table which I hold in my hand, prepared at my in- 
stance in the office of the Secretary of the Senate, and to 
which any Senator ma}' have access. The grounds on 
which tlie extra allowance is made to the new Slates are, 
first, their complaint that all lands sold by the federal 
government are five years exempted from taxation ; 
secondly, that it is to be applied in sucli maimer as will 
augment the value of the unsold public lands within 
them ; and, lastly, their recent settlement. 

I confess I feel anxious for the fate of this measure, 
less on account of any agency I have had in proposing 
it, as 1 hope and believe, than from a firm, sincere, and 
thorough conviction, that no one measure ever presented 
to the councils of the nation was fraught with so much 
immixed good, and could exert such powerful and en- 
during influence in the preservation of the Union itself, 
and upon some of its highest interests. If I can be 
instrumental, in any degree, in the adoption of it, I 
shall enjoy, in tliat retirement into which 1 hope shortly 
to enter, a heart-feeling satisfaction and a lasting conso- 
lation. I stiall carry there no regrets, no complaints, no 
reproaches on my own account. When I look back 
upon my humble origin, left an orphan too young to 
have been conscious of a father's smiles and caresses, 
with a widowed mother, surrounded by a numerous 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

on:^pring, in the midst of pecuniary einbarrassnieni 
without a rci^LiIar education, without fortune, withou, 
I'riends, without patrons, I have reason to be satisried 
with my public career. I ought to be thanliful for the high 
places and honors to which I have been called by the 
favor and partiality of my countrymen, and I am thank- 
ful and grateful. And I shall take with me the pleasing 
consciousness that, in whatever station I have been 
placed, I have earnestly and honestly laboured to justify 
their confidence by a faithful, fearless, and zealous dis- 
charge of my public duties. Pardon these personal 
allusions. 



ON THE EXPUNGING RESOLUTION. 

Mr. President, what patriotic purpose is to be accom- 
plished by this expunging resolution ! What new 
honor or fresh laurels will it win for our common coun- 
try ? Is the power of the Senate so vast that it ought 
to be circumscribed, and that of the President so re- 
stricted, that it ought to be extended? What power 
has the Senate ? None separately. It can only act 
jointly with the other House, or jointly with the 
executive. And although the theory of the constitution 
supposes, when consulted by him, it may freely give 
an affirmative or negative response according to the 
practice, as it now exists, it has lost the faculty of 
pronouncing the negative monosyllable. When the 
Senate expresses its deliberate judgment, in the form of 
resolution, that resolution has no compulsory force, but 
appeals only to the dispassionate intelligence, the calm 
reason, and the sober judgment of the community. The 
Senate has no army, no navy, no patronage, no lucrative 
offices, nor glittering honors to bestow. Around us 
there is no swarm of greedy expectants, rendering us 
homage, anticipating our wishes, and ready to execute 
our commands. 

How is it with the President ? Is he powerless. He 
is felt from one extremity to the other of this vast 



^ ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

republic. By means of principles which he has intro- 
duced, and innovations which he has made in our insti- 
tutions, alas ! too much countenanced by Congress and 
a confiding people, he exercises uncontrolled the power 
of the State. In one hand he holds the purse, and in 
the other brandishes the sword of the country. Myriads 
of dependents and partizans, scattered over the land, 
are ever ready to sing hosannas to him, and to laud to 
the skies whatever he does. He has swept over the 
government, during the last eight years, like a tropical 
tornado. Every department exhibits traces of the 
ravages of the storm. Take, as one example, the Bank 
of the United States. No institution could have been 
more popular with the people, with Congress, and with 
State Legislatures. None ever better fulfilled the sreat 
purposes of its establishment. But it unfortunately 
incurred the displeasure of the President; he spoke, 
and the Bank lies prostrate. And those who were 
loudest in its praise, are now loudest in its condemnation. 
What object of his ambition is unsatisfied? When 
disabled from age any longer to hold the sceptre of 
power, he designates his successor, and transmits it to 
his favorite. What more does he want. Must we blot, 
deface, and mutilate the records of the country to punish 
the presumptuousness of expressing an opinion contrary 
to his own. 

What patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this 
expunging resolution ? Can you make that not to be 
which has been ? Can you eradicate from memory and 
from history the fact, that in March, 18.34, a majority 
of the Senate of the United States passed the resolution 
which excites your enmity ? Is it your vain and wicked 
object to arrogate to yourselves that power of annihilat- 
ing tlie past which has been denied to Omnipotence 
itself? Do you intend to thrust your hands into our 
hearts, and to pluck out the deeply rooted convictions 
which are there ? or is it your design merely to stigma- 
tize us ? You cannot stigmatize US. 

" Ne'er yet did base dishonour blur our name." 



ASHtAND TEXT BOOK. 49 

Standing securely upon our conscious rectitude, and 
bearing aloft the shield of the constitution of our coun- 
try, your puny efforts are impotent, and we defy all 
your power. Put the majority of 1834 in one scale, 
and that by which this expunging resolution is to be 
_ carried in the other, and let truth and justice, in heaven 
above and on the earth below, and liberty and patriotism 
decide the preponderance. 

What patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this 
expunging? Is it to appease the wrath, and to heal the 
wounded pride of the Chief Magistrate ? If he be 
really the hero that his friends represent him, he must 
despise all mean condescension, all grovelling syco- 
phancy, all self-degradation, and self-abasement. He 
would reject with scorn and contempt, as unworthy of 
his fame, your black scratches, and your baby lines in 
the fair records of his country. Black lines ! Black 
lines ! Sir, I hope the Secretary of the Senate will 
preserve the pen with which he may inscribe them, and 
present it to that Senator of the majority whom he may 
select, as a proud trophy, to be transmitted to his 
descendants. And hereafter, when we shall lose the 
forms of our free institutions, all that now remain to us, 
some future American monarch, in gratitude to those by 
whose means he has been enabled, upon the ruins of 
civil liberty, to erect a throne, and to commemorate 
especially this expunging resolution, may institute a 
new order of knighthood, and confer on it the appro- 
priate name of the knight of the black lines. 

But why should I detain the Senate or needlessly 
waste my breath in fruitless exertions. The decree has 
gone forth. It is one of urgency, too. The deed is to 
be done — that foul deed, like the blood-stained hands of 
the guilty Macbeth, all ocean's waters will never wash 
out. Proceed, then, to the noble work which lies 
before you, and like other skilful executioners, do it 
quickly. And when you have perpetrated it, go home to 
the people, and tell them what glorious honors you have 
achieved for our common country. Tell them that you 
have extinguished one of the brightest and purest lights 
that ever burnt at the altar of civil liberty. Tell them 



50 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

you have silenced one of the noblest batteries that ever 
thundered in defence of the constitution, and bravely 
spiiied the cannon. Tell them that, henceforward, no 
matter what daring or outrageous act any Presic'enl may 
perform, you have forever hermetically sealed the mouth 
of the Senate. Tellthem that he may fearlessly assume 
what power he pleases — snatch from its lawful custody 
the public purse, command a military detalchment to 
enter the halls of the capilol, overawe Congress, trample 
down the constitution, and raze everybiilwark of free- 
dom ; but that the Senate must stand mute, in silent 
submission, and not dare to raise its opposing voice. 
That it must wait until a House of Representatives, 
humbled and subdued like itself, and a majority of it 
composed of the partizans of the President, shall prefer 
articles of impeachment. Tell them finally, that you 
have restored the glorious doctrine of p^issive obedience 
and non-resistance, and, if the people do not pour out 
their indignation and imprecations, I have yet to learn 
the character of American freemen. 



ON THE SUB-TREASURY. 

United States Senate, February 19, 1838. 

The great evil under which the country labors is the 
suspension of the banks to pay specie : the total derange- 
ment in all domestic exchanges; and the paralysis which 
has come over the whole business of the country. In 
regard to the currency, it is not that a given amount of 
bank notes will not now command as much as the same 
amount of specie would have done prior to the suspen- 
sion ; but it is the future, the danger of an inconvertible 
paper money being indefinitely or permanently fixed 
upon the people, that fills them with apprehensions. 
Ourgreat object should be to re-establish a sound currency 
and thereby to restore the exchanges, and revive the 
business of the country. 
' The first impression which the measures brought for- 



ASULAND TEXT HOOK. 51 

ward hy the administration make, is tliat they consist of 
temporary expedients, looking to the supjdy of the 
necessities of the treasury ; or, so far as any of them 
possess a permanent character, its tendency is rather to 
aggravate than alleviate the sufferings of the people. 
None of them proposes to rectify the disorders in the 
actual currency of the country ; but the people, the 
States, and their banks, are left to shift for themselves 
as they may or can. Tlie administration, after having 
intervened between the states and their banks, and taken 
them into their federal service, without tlie consent of 
the States ; after having puffed and praised them ; after 
having brought them, or contributed to bring them, inio 
their present situation, now suddenly turns its back upon 
them, leaving them to their fate ! It is not content with 
that; it must absolutely discredit their issues. And the 
very people who were told by the administration that 
these banks would supply them with a better currency, 
are now left to struggle as they can with the very cur- 
rency which the government recommended to them, but 
which it now refuses itself to receive ! 

The professed object of the administration is to estab- 
lish what it terms the currency of the constitution, which 
it proposes to accomplish by restricting the federal 
government, in all receipts and payments, to the exclu- 
sive use of specie, and by refusing all bank paper, 
whether convertible or not. It disclaims all purposes of 
crippling or putting down the banks of the States ; bi:t 
we shall better determine the design or the efl'ect of the 
measures recommended by considering them together, as 
one S3^stem. 

1. The first is the sub-treasuries, which are to be 
made the depositories of all the specie collected, and 
paid out for the service of the general government, dis- 
crediting and refusing all the notes of the States, although 
payable and paid in specie. 

2, A bankrupt law for the United States, levelled at 
all the State banks, and autliorizing the seizure of the 
effects of any one of them that stop payment, and the 
administration of their effects under the federal authority 
exclusively. 



52 ASirLANI) TEXT BOOK. 

3. A particular law for the District of Columbia, by 
which ail the corporations anti people of the District, 
under severe pains and penalties, are prohibited from 
circulating, sixty days after the passage of the law, any 
paper whatever not convertible into specie on demand, 
and are made liable to prosecution by indictment. 

4. And lastly, the bill to suspend the payment of the 
fourth instalment to the States, by the provisions of 
which the deposite banks indebted to the government 
are placed at the discretion of the Secretary of the 
Treasury. 

It is impossible to consider this system without per- 
ceiving that it is aimed at, and, if carried out, must ter- 
minate in the total subversion of the State Banks ; and 
that they will all be placed at the mercy of the federal 
government. It is in vain to protest tliat there exists no 
design against them. The effect of those measures 
cannot be misunderstood. 

Is it practicable for the federal government to put 
down the State banks, and to introduce an exclusive 
metallic currency ? In the operations of this govern- 
ment, we should ever bear in mind that political power 
is distributed between it and the States, and that, while 
our duties are few and clearly defined, the great mass of 
legislative authority abides with the States. Their 
banks exist without us, independent of us, and in spite 
of us. We have no constitutional power or right to put 
them down. Why, then, seek their destruction, openly 
or secretly, directly or indirectly, by discrediting their 
issues, and by bankrupt laws, and bills of pains and 
penalties. What are these banks now so descried and 
denounced ? Intruders, aliens, enemies that have found 
their way into the bosom of our country against our 
will. Reduced to their elements, and the analysis 
shows that they consist: 1st. of stockholders; 2d. 
debtors ; and 3d. bill holders and other creditors. In 
some one of these three relations, a large majority of 
the people of the United States stand. In making war 
upon tlie banks, therefore, you wage war upon the 
people of the United States. It is not a mere abstraction 
that you would kick and cuff, bankrupt and destroy, but 



ASllLANU TEXT UOUK. 



53 



a sensitive, generous, confiding people, who are anxiously 
turning their eyes towards you, and imploring relief. 
Every blow that you inilict upon the banks, reaches 
them. Press the banks, and you press them. 

We are told that it is necessary to separate, divorce 
the government from the banks. Let us not be deluded 
by sounds. Senators might as well talk of separating 
the government from tlie States, or from the people, or 
from the country. We are all — People — States — Union 
— Banks, bound up and interwoven together, united in 
fortune and destiny, and all, all entitled to the protect- 
ing care of a parental government. You may as well 
attempt to make the government breathe a diflerent air, 
drink a diflerent water, be lit and warmed by a different 
sun from the people ! A hard money government and a 
paper money people ! A government, an official corps 
— the servants of the people — glittering in gold, and the 
peoolp ihemselves, their masters, buried in ruin, and 
*virrounded with rags. 

No prudent or practical government will in its mea- 
sures Ain counter to the long-settled habits and usages 
of the people. Religion, language, laws, the established 
currency and business of a whole country, cannot be 
easily or suddenly uprooted. After the denomination of 
our coin was changed to dollars and cents, many years 
elapsed before the old method of keeping accounts, in 
pounds, shillings and pence, was abandoned; and, to 
this day, there are probably some men of the last cen- 
tury who adhere to it. If a fundamental change 
becomes necessary, it should not be sudden, but con-^ 
ducted by slow and cautious degrees. The people of 
the United States have been always a paper money 
people. It was paper money that carried us through the 
revolution, established our liberties, and made us a free 
and independent people. And, if the experience of the 
revolutionary war convinced our ancestors, as we are 
convinced, of the evils of an irredeemable p;iper medium, 
it was put aside only to give place to that convertible 
paper which has so powerfully contributed to our rapid 
advancement, prosperity, and greatness. 

The proposed substitute of an exclusive metallic cur 



5i ASHLAND TEXT iJOOK. 

rency, to the mixed medium with which we have been 
so long familiar, is forbidden by the principles of eternal 
justice. Assuming the currency of the country to con- 
sist of two-thirds of paper and one of specie ; and assum- 
ing, also, that the money of a country, whatever may be 
its component parts, regulates all values, and expresses 
the true amount which the debtor has to pay to his credi- 
tor, the eflect of the change upon that relation, and upon 
the property of the country, would be most ruinous. — 
All properly would be reduced in value to one-third of 
its present nominal amount, and every debtor would, in 
effect, have to pay three times as much as he had con- 
tracted for. The pressure of our foreign debt would 
be three times as great as it is, whilst the six hundred 
millions, which is about the sum now probably due to 
the Banks from the people, would be multiplied into 
eighteen hundred millions. 

Still, under a deep sense of the obligation to which I 
have referred, I declare that, after the most delibeiiiv'-^ 
and anxious consideration of which I am capable, I can 
conceive of no adequate remedy which does not compre- 
hend a national Bank as an essential part. It appears to 
me that a National Bank, with such modifications as ex- 
perience has pointed out, and particularly such as would 
limit its profits, exclude foreign influence in the govern- 
ment of it, and give pubhcity to its transactions, is the 
only safe and certain remedy that can be adopted. The 
great want of the country is a general and uniform cur- 
rency, and a point of union, a sentinel, a regulator of 
the issues of the local banks, and that would be supplied 
by such an institution. 

I am not going now to discuss, as an original question, 
the constitutional power of Congress to establish a Na- 
tional Bank. In human affairs there are some questions, 
and I think this is one, that ought to be held as termi- 
nated. Four several decisions of Congress affirming 
the power^v the concurrence of every other department 
of the government, the approbation of the people, the 
concurrence of both the great parties into which the 
country has been divided, and forty years of prosperous 
experience with such a bank, appear to me to settle the 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOR. 55 

controversy, if any controversy is ever to be settled. 
Twenty years ago Mr. Madison, wliose opposition to 
the first Bank of tlie United States is well known, in a 
message to Congress said : 

" Waiving the qnestion of the con-^titutional authority 
of the legislature to establish an incorporated bank, as 
being precluded, in my judgment, by repeated recogni- 
tions, under varied circumstances, of the validity of such 
an institution, in acts of the legislative, executive and 
judicial branches of the government, accompanied by 
indications, in different modes, of a correspondence of 
the general will of tlie nation ; the proposed bank does 
not appear to be calculated to answer the purposes of 
receiving the public credit, of providing a national me- 
dium of circulation, and of aiding the treasury by facili- 
tating the indispensable anticipations of revenue, and by 
affording to the public more durable loans." 

To all the considerations upon which he then relied, 
in treating it as a setUed question, are now to be added 
two distinct and distant subsequent expressions of the 
deliberate opinion of a Republican Congress; two solemn 
decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
twenty years of successful experience and disastrous 
consequences quickly following the discontinuance of 
the Bank. 

But the true and only efficacious and permanent 
remedy, I solemnly believe, is to be found in a Bank of 
the United States, properly organized and constituted. 
We are told that such a bank is fraught with indescriba- 
ble danger, and that the government must, in the sequel, 
get possession of the bank, or the bank of the govern- 
ment. I oppose to these imaginary terrors tlie practical 
experience of forty years. I oppose to them the issue 
of the memorable contest, commenced by the late Presi- 
dent of the United States, against the late Bank of the 
United Slates. The administration of that bank had 
been without serious fault. It had given no just offence 
to government, towards wliich it had faiilifully performed 
every financial duty. Under its able and enlightened 
President, it had fulfilled every anticipation which had 
been formed by those who created it ; President Jackson 



56 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

pronounced the edict that it must fall, and it did lali, 
against the wishes of an immense majority of the people 
of the United States ; against the convictions of its utility 
entertained by a large majority of the States ; and to the 
prejudice of the best interests of the whole country. If 
an innocent, unoffending and highly beneficial institu- 
tion could be thus easily destroyed by the power of one 
man, where would be the difficulty of crushing it, if it 
had given any real cause for just animadversion ? 
Finally, T oppose to these imaginary terrors the exam- 
ple deducible from English history. There a bank has 
existed since the year 1694, and neither has the bank 
got possession of the government, nor the government 
of the bank. They have existed in harmony together, 
both conducing to the prosperity of that great country ; 
and they have so existed, and so contributed, because 
each has avoided cherishing towards the other that 
wanton and unnecessary spirit of hostility which was 
unfortunately engendered in the late President of the 
United States. 



ON ABOLITION PETITIONS. 

In the Senate of the United States, February 7, 1839. 

It is well known to the Senate, that I have thought 
that the most judicious course with abolition petitions 
has not been of late pursued by Congress. I have 
believed that it would have been wisest to have received 
and referred them, without opposition, and to have 
reported against their object in a calm and dispassionate 
and argumentative appeal to the good sense of the whole 
community. It has been supposed, however, by a 
majority of Congress, that it was most expedient either 
not to receive the petitions at all, or, if formally re- 
ceived, not to act definitely upon them. There is no 
substantial difl!erence between these opposite opinions, 
since both look to an absolute rejection of the prayer of 
the petitioners. But there is a great difl'ercnce in the 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 57 

form of proceeding ; and, Mr. President, some experi- 
ence in the conduct of human affairs lias taught me to 
believe that a neglect to observe established forms is 
often attended with more mischievous consequences 
than the infliction of a positive injury. We all know 
that, even in private life, a violation of the existing 
usages and ceremonies of society cannot take place 
without serious prejudice. I fear, sir, that the abo- 
litionists have acquired a considerable apparent force 
by blending with the object which they have in view a 
collateral and totally different question arising out of an 
alledged violation of the right of petition. 1 know full 
well, and take great pleasure in testifying that nothing 
was remoter from the intention of the majority of the 
Senate, from which I differed, than to violate the right 
of petition in any case in which, according to its judg- 
ment, that right could be constitutionally exercised, or 
where the object of the petition could be safely or 
properly granted. Still, it must be owned that the 
abolitionists have seized hold of the fact of the treatment 
which their petitions have received in Congress, and 
made injurious impressions upon the minds of a large 
portion of the community. This, I think, might have 
been avoided by the course which I should have been 
glad to have seen pursued. 

There are three classes of persons opposed, or appar- 
ently opposed, to the continued existence of slavery in 
the United States. The first are those who, from sen- 
timents of philanthropy and humanity, are conscien- 
tiously opposed to the existence of slavery, but who 
are no less opposed, at the same time, to any disturb- 
ance of the peace and tranquility of the Union, or the 
infringement of the powers of the Stales composing the 
confederacy. In this class may be comprehended that 
peaceful and exemplary society of " Friends," one of 
whose established maxims is, an abhorrence of war in 
all its forms, and the cultivation of peace and good- will 
among mankind, "^he next class consists of apparent 
abolitionists — that is, those who, having been persuaded 
that tlie right of petition has been violated by Congress, 
co-operate with the abolitionists for the sole purpose of 



58 ASHLAND TEXT HOOK. 

asserting and vindicating that right. And the tliird 
class are the real nUra-abolilionists, who are resolved to 
persevere in the pursuit of their object at all hazards, 
and without regard to any consequences, however ca- 
lamitous they may be. With them the right of property 
is nothing ; the deficiency of the powers of the general 
government is nothing ; the acknowledged and incontes- 
tible powers of the Stales are nothing ; a civil war, a 
dissolution of the Union, and the overthrow of a gov- 
ernment in which are concentrated the fondest hopes of 
the civilized world, are nothing. A single idea has 
taken possession of their minds, and onward they pur- 
sue it, overlooking all barriers, and regardless of all 
consequences. With this class the immediate abolition 
of slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the terri- 
tory of Florida, ihe prohibition of the removal of slaves 
from State to State, and the refusal to admit any new 
State, comprising within its limits the institution of 
domestic slavery, are but so many means conducing to 
the accomplishment of the ultimate but perilous end at 
which they avowedly and boldly aim; are but so many 
short stages in the long and bloody road teethe distant 
goal at which they would finally arrive. Their purpose 
IS abolition, universal abolition, peaceably if they can, 
forcibly if they must. Their object is no longer con- 
cealed by the thinnest veil ; it is avowed-and proclaimed. 
Utterly destitute of constitutional or other rightful 
power, living in totally distinct communities, as alien to 
the communities in which the subject on which they 
would operate resides, so far as concerns political 
power over that subject, as if they lived in Africa or 
Asia, they nevertheless promulgate to the world their 
purpose to be to manumit forthwith, and without com- 
pensation, and without moral preparation, three millions 
of neofro slaves, under jurisdictions altogether separ- 
ated from those under which tliey live. I have said 
that immediate abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia and the territory of Florida, and the exclusion 
of new States, were only means towards the attainment 
of a much more important end. Unfortunately, they are 
not the only means. Another, and much more lament- 



AtillLAXU TEXT BOOK. 59 

able one is ihat wliicli this class is endeavoring to em- 
ploy, of arrayintr one portion against another portion of 
the Union. With that view, in all their leading prints 
and publications, the alledged horrors of slavery are 
depicted in the most glowing and exaggerated colors, 
to excite the imaginations and stimulate the rage of the 
people in the free States against the people in the slave 
States. The slave-holder is held up and represented as 
the most atrocious of human beings. Advertisements 
of fugitive slaves and of slaves to be sold, are carefully 
collected and blazoned forth, to infuse a spirit of detesta- 
tion and hatred against one entire and the largest section 
of the Union. And like a notorious agitator upon 
another theatre, they would hunt down and proscribe 
from the pale of civilized society the inhabitants of that 
entire section. Allow me, Mr. President, to say, that 
while I recognize in the justly wounded feelings of the 
minister of the United States at the Court of St. James, 
much to excuse the notice which he was provoked to 
take of that agitator, in my humble opinion, he would 
have better consulted the dignity of his station and of 
his country i« treating it with contemptuous silence. He 
would exclude us from European society — lie who 
himself can only obtain a contraband admission, and is 
received with scornful repugnance into it ! If he be no 
more desirous of our society than we are of his, he may 
rest assured that a state of eternal non-intercourse will 
exist between us. Yes, sir, I think the American 
minister would have best pursued the dictates of true 
dignity by regarding the language of the member of tiie 
British House of Commons as the malignant ravings of 
the plunderer of his own country, and the libeller of a 
foreign and kindred people. 

But the means to which I have already adverted, are 
not the only ones which tliis third class of ultra-nboli- 
tionists are employing to effect their ultimate end. They 
began their operations by professing to employ only 
persuasive means in appealing to the humanity, and 
enlightening the understandings of the slave-holding 
portion of the Union. If there were some kindness in 
this avowed motive, it must be acknowledged that there 



60 ASHLAND TEXT IJUOK. 

was rather a presumptuous display also of an assumed 
superiority in intelligence and knowledge. For some 
time they continued to make these appeals to our duly 
and our interest; but impatient with the slow influence 
of their logic upon our minds, they recently resolved to 
change their system of action. To the agency of their 
powers of persuasion, they now propose to substitute 
the powers of the ballot box ; and he must be blind to 
M'hat is passing before us, who does not perceive that 
the inevitable tendency of their proceedings is, if these 
should be found insufllcient, to provoke, finally, the more 
potent powers of the bayonet. 

Various causes, Mr. President, have contributed to 
produce the existing excitement on the subject of aboli- 
tion. The principal one, perhaps, is the example of 
British emancipation of the slaves in the islands adjacent 
to our country. Such is the similarity in laws, in lan- 
guage, in institutions, and in common origin, between 
Great Britain and the United States, that no great mea- 
sure of national policy can be adopted in the one country 
without producing a considerable degree of influence in 
the other. Confounding the totally difl'erent cases 
together, of the powers of the British parliament 'And 
those of the Congress of the United Stales, and the 
totally different situations of the British West India 
Islands, and the slaves in the sovereign and independent 
States of this confederacy, superficial men have inferred 
from the undecided Britisli experiment, the practicability 
of the abolition of slavery in these States. The powers 
of the British parliament are unlimited, and are often 
described to be omnipotent. The powers of the Ameri- 
can Congress, on the contrary, are few, cautiously limit- 
ed, scrupulously excluding all that are not granted, and 
above all, carefully and absolutely excluding all power 
over the existence and continuance of slavery in the 
several States. The slaves, too, upon whicli British 
legislation operated, were not in the bosom of the king- 
dom, but in remote and feeble colonies having no voice 
in parliament. The West India slaveholder was neither 
represented nor representative in that parliament. And 
while I most fervently wish complete success to the 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 61 

British experiment of West India emancipation, I con- 
fess that I have fearful forebodings of a disastrous termi- 
nation of it. Whatever it may be, I think it must be 
admitted that, if the British parliament had treated the 
West India slaves as freemen, it also treated the West 
India freemen as slaves. If, instead of these slaves 
being separated by a wide ocean from the parent coun- 
try, three or four millions of Africa negro slaves had 
been dispersed over England, Scotland, Wales, and 
Ireland, and their owners had been members of the 
British parliament — a case which would have presented 
some analogy to that of our country — does any one 
believe that it would have been expedient or practicable 
to have emancipated tliem, leaving them to remain, with 
all their embittered feelings, in the United kingdom, 
boundless as the powers of the British parliament are? 

I am, Mr. President, no friend of slavery. The 
searcher of all hearts knows that every pulsation of 
mine beats high and strong in the cause of civil liberty. 
Wherever it is safe and practicable, I desire to see every 
portion of the human family in the enjoyment of it. 
But I prefer the liberty of my own country to that of 
any other people ; and the liberty of my own race to 
that of any other race. The liberty of the descendants 
of Africa in the United States is incompatible with the 
safety and liberty of the European descendants. Their 
slavery forms an exception — an exception resulting 
from a stern and inexorable necessity — to the general 
liberty in the United States. — We did not originate, nor 
are we responsible for, this necessity. Their liberty, if 
it were possible, could only be established by violating 
the incontestable powers of the States, and subverting 
the Union. And beneath the ruins of the Union would 
be buried, sooner or later, the liberty of both races. 

But if one dark spot exists on our political horizon, is 
it not obscured by the bright, effulgent and cheering 
light that beams all a'ound ns I Was ever a people 
before so blessed as we are, if true to ourselves? Did ever 
any other nation contain within its bosom so many 
elements of prosperity, of greatness, and of glory ? Our 
only real danger lies ahead, conspicuous, elevated, and 



62 ASHLAND TKXT BOOK. 

visible. It was clearly discerned at the commencement, 
and distinctly seen throughout our whole career. Shall 
we wantonly run upon it, and destroy all the, glorious 
anticipations of the high destiny that awaits us '( I 
beseech the abolitionists themselves, solemnly to pause 
in their mad and fatal course. Amid the infinite variety 
of objects of humanity and benevolence which invite 
the employment of their energies, let them select some 
one more harmless, that does not threaten to deluge our 
country in blood. I call upon that small portion of the 
clergy, wliich has lent itself to these wild and ruinous 
schemes, not to forget the holy nature of the divine 
mission of the founder of our religion, and to profit by 
his peaceful examples. I entreat that portion of my 
countrywomen who have given their countenance to 
abolition, to remember that they are ever most loved and 
honored when moving in their own appropriate and 
delightful sphere; and to reflect that the ink which they 
shed in subscribing with their fair hands abolition peti- 
tions may prove but the prelude to the shedding of the 
blood of their brethren. 1 adjure all the inhabitants of 
the free states to rebuke and discountenance, by their 
opinion and their example, measures which must inevi- 
tably lead to the most calamitous consequences. And 
let us all as countrymen, as friends, and as brothers, 
clierish in unfading memory the motto which bore our 
ancestors triumphantly through all the trials of the revo- 
lution, a?, if adliered to, it will conduct their posterity 
through all that may, in the dispensations of Providence, 
be reserved for them. 



THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 

July lOlh, 1810. 

With the view, therefore, to the fundamental character 
of the government itself, and especially of the executive 
branch, it seems to me that, either by amendments of 
the constitution, when they are necessary, or by reme- 
dial legislation when the object falls within the scope of 
the powers of Congress, there should be, 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 63 

1st. A provision to render a person ineligible to the 
office of President of the United Slates, after a service 
of one term. 

Much observation and deliberate reflection have satis- 
fied me tliat too much of the time, the thouglits, and the 
exertions of the incumbent are occupied, during his first 
term, in securing his re-election. The ])ublic business, 
consequenUy suffers, and measures are proposed or ex- 
ecuted, with less regard to the general prosperity than 
to their influence upon the approaching election. If the 
limitation to one term existed, the President would be 
exclusively devoted to the discharge of his public duties ; 
and he would endeavour to signalize his administration 
by the beneficence and wisdom of its measures. 

2nd. That the veto power should be move precisely de- 
fined, and be subjected to further limitations and qualifi- 
cations. Although a large, perhaps the largest propor- 
tion of all the acts of Congress, passed at the short 
sessions of Congress, since the commencement of the 
government, were passed within the three last days of 
the session, and when, of course, the President, for the 
time being, had not the ten days for consideration 
allowed by the constitution. President Jackson, availing 
himself of that allowance, has failed to return important 
bills. When not returned by the President within the 
ten days, it is questionable whether they are laws or 
not. It is very certain that the next Congress cannot 
act upon them by deciding whether or not they shall 
become laws, the President's objections notwithstanding. 
All this ought to be provided for. 

At present, a bill returned, by the President, can only 
become a law by the concurrence of two-thirds of the 
members of each House. I think if Congress passes a 
bill afier discussion and consideration, and, after weigh- 
ing the objections of the President, still believes it ought 
to pass, it should become a law, provided a majority of 
all the members of each House concur in its passage. 
If the weight of his argument, and the weight of his 
influence conjointly, cannot prevail on a majority, 
against their former convictions, in my opinion the bill 
ought not to be arrested. Such is the provision of the 



64 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

conslilutions of several States, and that of Kentucky 
among them. 

3(1. That the power of dismission from office should 
be restricted, and the exercise of it be rendered respon- 
sible. 

Tlie constitutional concurrence of the Senate is ne- 
cessary to tlie confirmation of all important appointments, 
but, without consulting the Senate, without any other 
motive than resentment or caprice, the President may 
dismiss at his sole pleasure, an officer created by the 
joint action of himself and the Senate. The practical 
effect is to nullify the agency of the Senate. There maybe 
occasionally, cases in which the public interest requires 
an immediate dismission without waiting for the assem- 
bling of the Senate ; but, in all such cases, the President 
should be bound to communicate fully the grounds and 
motives of the dismission. The power would be thus 
rendered responsible. Without it, the exercise of the 
power is utterly repugnant to free institutions, the basis 
of which is perfect responsibility, and dangerous to pub- 
lic liberty, as has been already shown. 

4th. That the control over the treasury of the United 
States should be confided and confined exclusively to 
Congress ; and all authority of the President over it, by 
means of dismissing the Secretary of the Treasury, or 
other persons having the immediate charge of it, be 
rigorously precluded. 

You have heard much, fellow citizens, of the divorce 
of banks and government. After crippling them and im- 
pairing their utility, the executive and its partisans 
have systematically denounced them. The executive 
anrl the country were warned again and again of the 
fatal course that has been pursued ; but the executive, 
nevertheless, persevered, commencing by praising and 
ending by decrying the State banks. Under cover of 
the smoke which has been raised, the real object all 
along has been, and yet is, to obtain the possession of 
the money power of the Union. That accomplished 
and sanctioned by the people — the union of the sword 
and the purse in the hands of the President effectually 
secured — and farewell to American libRrlv. The sub- 



At;HLAND TEXT BOOK. 65 

treasury is the scheme .for eflccting that union ; and I 
am told, that of all the days in the year, that which gave 
birth to onr national existence and freedom, is the se- 
lected day to be disgraced by ushering into existence a 
measure, imminently perilous to the liberty which, on 
that anniversary, we commemorate in joyous festivals. 
Thus, in the spirit of destruction which animates our 
rulers, would they convert a day of gladness and of glory 
into a day of sadness and mourning. Fellow citizens, 
there is one divorce urgently demanded by the safety 
and the highest interests of the country — a divorce of 
the President from the treasury of the United States. 

And 5th. That the appointment of members of Con- 
gress to any office, or any but a few specific offices, 
during their, continuance in office, and for one year 
thereafter, be prohibited. 

This is a hackneyed theme ; but it is not less deserving 
serious consideration. The constitution now interdicts 
the appointment of a member of Congress to any office 
created, or the emoluments of which hadl)een increased 
while he was in office. In the purer days of the republic, 
that restriction might have been sufficient, but in these 
more degenerate times, it is necessary, by an amend- 
ment of the constitution, to give the principle a greater 
extent. 

Candor and truth require me to say, that, in my judg- 
ment, while banks continue to exist in the country, the 
services of a Bank of the United States cannot be safely 
dispensed with. I think that the power to establish 
such a bank is a settled question ; settled by Washing- 
ton and by Madison, by the people, by forty years' ac- 
quiescence, by the judiciary, and by both of the great 
parties which so long held sway in the country. I know 
and I respect the contrary opinion which is entertained 
in this State. But, in my deliberate view of ihe matter, 
the power to establish such a bank being settled, and 
being a necessary and proper power, the only question 
is as to the expediency of its exercise. And on ques-' 
tions of mere expediency public opinion ought to have 
a controlling influence. Without banks I believe we 
cannot have a sufficient currency ; without a Bank of the 
3 ^ 



66 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

United States, I fear we cannot have a sound currency. 
But it is the end, that of a sound and sufficient currency, 
and a faithful execution of the fiscal duties of govern- 
ment, that should engage the dispassionate and candid 
consideration of the whole community. There is nothing 
in the name of the Bank of the United States which has 
any magical charm, or to which any one need be wedded. 
It is to secure certain great objects, without which 
society cannot prosper; and if, contrary to my appre- 
hension, these objects can be accomplished by dispensing 
with the agency of a Bank of the United States, and eni- 
j)!oying that of State Banks, all ought to rejoice and 
heartily acquiesce, and none would more than 1 should. 



ANTI-REPUDIATION. 

Language has been held in this chamber which would 
lead any one who heard it to believe that some gentle- 
men would take delight in seeing States dishonored and 
unable to pay their bonds. If such a feeling does really 
exist, I trust it will find no sympathy with the people of 
this country, as it can have none in the breast of any 
honest man. When the honorable Senator from Mas- 
sachusetts (Mr. Webster) the other day uttered, in such 
thrilling language, ihe sentiment that honor and probity 
bound the States to the faithful payment of all their 
debts, and that they would do it, I felt my bosom swell- 
ing with patriotic pride — pride, on account of the just 
and manly sentiment itself ; and pride, on account of the 
beautiful and eloquent language in which that noble sen- 
timent was clothed. Dishonor American credit! Dis- 
honor the American name ! Dishonor the whole coun- 
try ! Why sir, what is national character, national credit, 
national honor, national glory, but the aggregate of the 
character, the credit, the honor, the glory, of the [)arts 
of the nation ? Can the parts be dishonored, and the 
whole remain unsullied ? Or can the whole be blemished, 
and the parts stand pure and unlainied ! Can a younger 
sister be disgraced, without bringing blushes and shame 
upon the whole family ! Can our young sister Illinois 
(I mention her only for illustration, but with all feelings 
and sentiments of fraternal regard,) can she degrade her 



ASULANO TSXT BOOK. 67 

character as a State without bringing reproacli and 
obloquy upon all of us? What has made England — 
our country's glorious parent — (although she has taught 
us the duty of eternal watchfulness, to repel aggression, 
and maintain our rights against even her) — what has 
made England the wonder of the world ? What has 
raised her to such pre-eminence in wealth, power, 
empire and greatness, at once the awe and the admiration 
of nations ? Undoubtedly, among the prominent causes, 
have been the preservation of her credit, the maintenance 
of her honor, and tlie scrupulous fidelity with which 
she has fulfilled her pecuniary engagements, foreign as 
well as domestic. An opposite example of a disregard 
of national faith and character presents itself in the pages 
of ancient history. Every schoolboy is familiar with 
the phrase " Punic faith," which at Rome became a 
byword and a reproach against Carthage, in consequence 
of her notorious violations of her public engagements. 
The stigma has been transmitted down to the present 
time, and will remain for ever uneffaced. Who would 
not lament that a similar stigma should be affixed to any 
member of our confederacy ? If there be any one so 
thoroughly imbued with party spirit, so destitute of 
honor and morality, so regardless of just feelings of 
national dignity and character, as to desire to see any of 
the States of this glorious Union dishonored, by violating 
their engagements to foreigners, and refusing to pay 
their just debts, I repel and repudiate him and his senti- 
ments as unworthy of the American name, as sentiments 
dishonest in themselves, and neither entertained nor 
approved by the people of the United States. 

We propose that, by a just exercise of incontestable 
powers possessed by this government, we shall go to 
the succor of all the states, and, by a fair distribution of 
the proceeds of the public lands among them, avert, as 
far as that may avert, the ruin and dishonor with which 
some of them are menaced. We propose, in short, 
such an administration of the powers of this government 
as shall protect and relieve our common constituents 
from the embarrassments to which they may be exposed 
from the defects in the powers or in the administration 
of the state governments. 



68 AiSHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

Now, sir, it is manifest, that the public lands cannot 
be all settled in a century or centuries to come. The 
progress of their settlement is indicated by the growth 
of the population of the United States. There have not 
been, on an average, five millions of acres per annum 
sold, during the last half century. Larger quantities 
will be probably hereafter, altliough not immediately, 
annually sold. Now, when we recollect, that we have at 
least a billion of acres of land to dispose of, some idea 
maybe entertained, judging from the past of the probable 
leno-th of »time before the whole is sold. Prior to their 
sale and settlement, the unoccupied portion of the public 
domain must remain either in the hands of the general 
government or in the hands of the ytate governments, 
or pass into the hands of speculators. In the liands of 
the general government, if that government shall perform 
its duty, we know that the public lands will be distri- 
buted on liberal, equal, and moderate terms. The worst 
fate that can befall them would be for lliem to be acquired 
by speculators. The emigrant and settler would alwa3^s 
prefer purchasing from government, at fixed and known 
rates, rather than from the speculator, at unknown rates, 
fixed by his cupidity or caprice. But if they are trans- 
ferred from the general government, the best of them 
will be engrossed by speculators. That is the inevita- 
ble tendency of reduction of the price by graduation, 
and of cession to the States within which they lie. 

The rival plan is for tlie general government to retain 
the public domain, and make distribution of the proceeds 
in time of peace among the several states, upon equal 
and just principles, according to the rule of federal 
numbers, and in time of war to resume the proceeds for 
its vigorous prosecution. We think that the adminis- 
tration of the public lands had better remain with the 
common government, than administercil according to 
various, and, perhaps, conflicting views. As to that 
important part of them wliich was ceded by certain 
states to the United States for the common benefit of all 
the states, a trust was thereby created wliich has been 
voluntarily accepted by the United States, and wliich 
they are not at liberty now to decline or transfer. The 
history of public lands held in the United States, demon- 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 6'J 

slrates that they have been wasted or thrown away by 
most of the states that owned any, and that the general 
government has displayed more judgment and wisdom 
in the administration of them than any of the states. 
While.it is readily admitted that revenue should not be 
regarded as the sole or exclusive object, the pecuniary 
advantages which may be derived from this great national 
property to both the states and the Union, ought not to 
be altogether overlooked. 

The measure which 1 have had the honor to propose, 
settles this great and agitating question forever. It is 
founded upon no partial and unequal basis, aggrandizing 
a few of the States to the prejudice of the rest. It 
stands on a just, broad, and liberal foundation. It is a 
measure applicable not only to the states now in being, 
but to the territories, as states shall hereafter be formed 
out of them, and to all new states as they shall rise tier 
behind tier, to the Pacific ocean. It is a system operat- 
ing upon a space almost boundless, and adapted to all 
future time. It was a noble spirit of harmony and 
union that prompted the revolutionary states originally 
to cede to the United States. How admirably does 
this measure conform to that spirit and lend to the per- 
petuity of our glorious Union ! The imagination can 
hardly conceive one fraught with more harmony and 
union among the States. If to the other ties that bind 
us together as one people, be superadded the powerful 
interest springing out of a just administration of our 
exhaustless public domain, for which, for a long succes- 
sion of ages, in seasons of peace, the states will enjoy 
the benefit of the great and growing revenue which it 
produces, and in periods of war that revenue will be 
applied to the prosecution of the war, we shall be for 
ever linked together, with the strength of adamantine 
chains. No section, no state, would ever be mad enough 
■ to break ofT from the Union, and deprive itself of the 
inestimable advantages which it secures. Although 
thirty or forty more of the new states should be admitted 
into this Union, this measure would cement tliem all fast 
together. 'I'he honorable member from INIissouri near 
me. (I\lr. liinn.) is very anxious to have a settlement 
formed at the mouth of the Oregon, and he will probably 



70 ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 

be gratified at no very distant day. Then will be seen 
members from the Pacific States scaling the Rocky 
Mountains, passing through the country of the grizzly 
bear, descending the turbid Missouri, entering the 
father of rivers, ascending the beautiful Ohio, and 
coming to this capitol, to take their seats in its spacious 
and magnificent halls. Proud of the commission they 
bear, and happy to find themselves here in council with 
friends, and brothers, and countrymen, enjoying the in- 
calculable benefits of this great confederacy, and among 
them their annual distributive share of the issues of a 
nation's inheritance, would even they, the remote people 
of the Pacific, ever desire to separate themselves from 
such a high and glorious destiny ? The fund which is 
to be dedicated to these great and salutary purposes, 
does not proceed from a few thousand acres of land, 
soon to be disposed of; but of more than ten hundred 
millions of acres: and age after age may roll away, 
state after state arise, generation succeed generation, and 
still the fund will remain not only unexhausted, but 
improved and increasing, for the benefit of our children's 
children to the remotest posterity. The measure is not 
one pregnant with jealousy, discord or division, but it 
is a far-reaching, comprehensive, healing measure of 
compromise and composure, having for its patriotic 
object the harmony, the stability, and the prosperity of 
the states and of the Union. 



SLAVERY AND ABOLITION. 

Reply to Mr. MendenhaJV s Petition, Oct. Is/, 1842. 

Without any knowledge of the relation in which I 
stand to my slaves, or their individual condition, you, 
Mr. Mendenhall, and your associates, who have been 
active in getting up this petition, call upon me forthwith 
to liberate the whole of them. Now let me tell you, 
that some half dozen of them, from age, decrepitude, or 
infirmity, are wholly unable to gain a liveliliood for 
themselves, and are a heavy charge upon me. Do you 
think I should conform to the dictates of humanity by 
ridding myself of that charge, and sending them forth 



ASHLAND TEXT BOOK. 7l 

into tlie world, with tho boon of liberty, to end a 
wretched existence in starvation? Another class is 
composed of helpless infants, with or without improvi- 
dent mothers. Do you believe, as a Christian, that I 
should perform my duty towards them by abandoning 
them to their fate ? Then there is another class who 
would not accept their freedom if I would give it to 
them. I have for many years owned a slave that I 
wished would leave me, but he will not. What shall I 
do with that class ? 

What my treatment of my slaves is you may learn 
from Charles, who accompanies me on this journey, and 
who has travelled with me over the greater part of the 
United States, and in both the Canadas, and has had a 
thousand opportunities, if he had chosen to embrace 
them, to leave me. Excuse me, Mr. Mendenhall, for 
saying that my slaves are as well fed and clad, look as 
sleek and hearty, and are quite as civil and respectful in 
their demeanor, and as little disposed to wound the feel- 
ings of any one, as you are. 

Let me recommend you, sir, to imitate the benevo- 
lent example of the Society of Friends, in the midst of 
which you reside. Meek, gentle, imbued with the gen- 
uine spirit of our benign religion, while in principle they 
are firmly opposed to slavery, they do not seek to 
accomplish its extinction by foul epithets, coarse and 
vulgar abuse, and gross calumny. Their ways do not 
lead through blood, revolution and disunion. Their 
broad and comprehensive philanthropy embraces, as 
they believe, the good and the happiness of the white 
as well as the black race; giving to the one their com- 
miseration, to the other their kindest sympathy. Their 
instruments are not those of detraction and of war, but 
of peace, persuasion and earnest appeals to the charities 
of the human heart. Unambitious, they have no politi- 
cal objects or purposes to subserve. My intercourse 
with them throughout life has been considerable, inter- 
esting and agreeable; and I venture to say nothing could 
have induced them as a society, whatever a few indi- 
vidual smight have been tempted to do, to seize the occa- 
sion of my casual passage through this State to ofler 
me a personal indignity. 



72 ASHLAND TEXT BOCK. 

I respect the motives of rational abolitionists, who 
are actuated by a sentiment of devotion to human 
liberty, although I deplore and deprecate the conse- 
quences of the agitation of the question. I have even 
many friends among them. But they are not monoma- 
niacs, who, surrendering themselves to a single idea, 
look altogether to the black side of human life. They 
do not believe that the sum total of all our efforts and 
all our solicitude should be abolition. They believe that 
there are duties to perform towards the white man as 
well as the black. They want good government, good 
administration, and the general prosperity of their 
country. 

I shall, Mr. Mendenhall, take your petition into 
respectful and deliberate consideration ; but before I 
come to a final decision, I should like to know what you 
and your associates are willing to do for the slaves in 
my possession ; if I should think proper to liberate 
them. I own about fifty, who are probably worth 
fifteen thousand dollars. To turn them loose upon 
society without any means of subsistence or support 
would be an act of cruelty. Are you willing to raise 
and secure the payment of fifteen thousand dollars for 
their benefit, if I should be induced to free them ? The 
security of the payment of that sum would materially 
lessen the obstacle in the way of their emancipation. 

And now, Mr. Mendenhall, I must take respectful 
leave of you. We separate, as we have met, with no 
unkind feelings, no excited anger or dissatisfaction on 
my part, whatever may have been your motives, and 
these I refer to our common judge above, to whom we 
are both responsible. Go home, and mind your own 
business, and leave other people to take care of theirs. 
Limit your benevolent exertions to your own neighbor- 
hood. Within that circle you will find ample scope for 
the exercise of all your charities. Dry up the tears of 
the alflicled widows around you, console and comfort 
the helpless orphan, clothe the naked, and feed and help 
the poor, black and white, who need succor. And you 
will be a better and wiser man than you have this day 
shown yourself. 



NEW POLITICAL WORKS. 



CIiEMEXTT rALCONE 



.1 



Or the Memoirs of a Young Whig^ by a Harrisor 
ian Elector for the State of Maryland^ in 1840, an 
a Clay Whig of 1844, 2 vols. 12 mo. Price 20 ct 
a volume. g 

'' The Wit and humor contained in these volumes are very rich," "the c 
lineations and descriptions of the Kitchen Cabinet are very lively and graphi 
Suffice it to say that these admirable volumes are the productions of a Har 
sonian Elector of 1840, and a genuine Clay Whig of 1844." Ballo. Patrii 

"Mr. N. Hickman has just republished two Satirical Volumes which a 
peared during the last presidental Election, and which attracted much attenti 
then on account of their humorous raillery of Political actors and Politic 
Events. It is entitled Clement Falconer or the Memoirs of a Youi 
Whig, and was written by a gentleman who was one of the whig Electors 
1840. Balto. American. 



THE 



POLITICIAN'S EEGISTER, 

WILL BE PUBLISHED ON MARCH 15th. 



THE POLITICIAN'S REGISTER, 

Containing a list of the Chief Executive and Judicial Officers of the Unil 
Slates. The Members of the 28lh Congress; Governors of the States a 
Territories — with their terms of office, salaries, &c. The time of Holdi 
elections— and place and time of the meeting of the State Legislatures; ( 
census of 1840, with the Number of Presidental Electors and Congressm 
under the New Apportionment Act; a digest of the Naturalization Laws. 'J 
gelher with the votes polled for the President, Governors, Congressmen, & 
in the several States, by counties, in 1840, '41 '42 '43 and '44. 

1 vol., 18 mo 72 pages. Price 12i cents, or 1.25 a dozen, 

Agents, Newsmen &c., desiring any of the above works will please addn 
the subscriber. Liberal discounts made to those who buy in quantities. 

BALTIMORE, Md. 







£^ '-"vi. 









% '^:^iW^ A ^^/r 




V .K 






..'^' 









O^ * « o ' .O"^ 






7\ >*1^- 






A' 












/ -^^ °of ?^* y' %^ -• 








. » • A 














